Sascha Maassen - Road America

Sascha Maassen notched his second American Le Mans Series prototype win on
Sunday, topping the LMP2 class at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
Maassen, of Raeren, Belgium, and Timo Bernhard of Dittweiler, Germany,
combined for the class win in the No. 6 Penske Racing Porsche RS Spyder –
their first prototype win together. The win gives Maassen a narrow two-point
lead in the LMP2 driver championship with three races remaining this season.

 

Maassen qualified second in class, sixth overall, with a lap time of one
minute 51.393 seconds on the 4.048-mile road course. He drove the first
stint of the two-hour 45-minute race, moving up to first in class, fourth
overall. Bernhard took over at 1h11, but was delayed when the car's airjacks
failed, dropping him to second in class, 10th overall. He regained the class
lead at 1h37 and worked through the field to finish fourth overall.

 

"I'm really happy we won the race. In the beginning, we had a big, big
problem with traffic. I couldn't get by and lost a lot of time," Maassen
said. "When we changed to Timo, we had a problem with our airjacks, so that
change took a little bit longer and we lost some time in the pits, but Timo
really did a good job and the team recovered. Our strategy was good because
we didn't change tires on the last stop, so we gained position. We were
leading with half an hour to go, by 23 seconds, so it was pretty clear. And
then came the yellow [caution]. But Timo did a great job, protected [his
position] and he stayed ahead. So it was good!"

 

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Sylvia Proudfoot
HYPERLINK "mailto:sylvia@spurcom.ca"sylvia@spurcom.ca
403 287 3945