American Le Mans Series racer Sascha Maassen Sascha Maassen claimed a fighting second place on his Porsche Carrera Cup GB debut at Thruxton over the weekend (3/4 June) and rated the pace of the championship front-runners as extremely high.Maassen is one of the most experienced Porsche racers in the world and is currently racing the Porsche RS Spyder in the ALMS. However, he took time out of his schedule to race the Vertu-backed VIP car of Porsche Cars GB for his first experience of the high-speed Hampshire track.Having built his pace through the weekend, Maassen had a crowd-pleasing battle with Richard Westbrook for the lead before finishing second in Sunday's race. After the race, he congratulated Westbrook on a fine battle and acknowledged the high standard of driver in the Carrera Cup GB."The guys in front are really pushing and the pace is very fast," said Maassen. "Richard is the best driver in these cars at the moment, so to come here and race with him was very good. I really enjoyed it, it was a great fight and I didn't make it too easy for him!"Maassen had his first sight of Thruxton during testing on Friday and found improvements to his lap times every time he went out. "When I came here I had no idea what to expect. It's so quick and very difficult," he said of the high speed Hampshire track. "It's the kind of circuit that could also exist in the USA, with a lot of fifth gear corners."