LAS VEGAS -- Australia's Will Power won his second pole in three races Saturday, claiming the No. 1 starting position for Champ Car's Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Paul Tracy of Canada earned the spot on the outside of the front row by taking the provisional pole in Friday's qualifying.
Power, an Australian who won his first Champ Car pole last fall in his native country, was easily the fastest driver on Saturday, turning a lap of 1 minute, 17.629 seconds on the 2.44-mile street circuit.
Robert Doornbos of the Netherlands, one of eight rookies in the field, will start third after posting the next best lap of 1:18.515, just a few ticks faster than Alex Tagliani at 1:18.850 and Simon Pagenaud of France, another first-year driver, who clocked a 1:18.961.
Heralded rookie Graham Rahal, son of longtime racing star Bobby Rahal, crashed in the morning practice and had to move to his backup car, which had never been driven on a racetrack. The 18-year-old Rahal still wound up in 10th place at 1:19.710.
Tracy had only the ninth fastest time Saturday, 1:19.625, but used the day to work on race setup and try to get less wear on his rear tires.
"That's a problem we had yesterday and we spent quite a bit of time today on longer runs, seven or eight laps, to see if we could figure that out," Tracy said. "It probably cost us a little bit in terms of the outright lap time, but I think we have a good race car."
Most important, though, is that Tracy believes he is competitive again after a year in which he won no poles and no races for the first time since he joined the Forsythe team in 2003 and only the third time in a career that began in 1991.
"I think my focus is all (on) this championship," Tracy said. "I signed a new contract last year with Forsythe Racing and made a commitment to the series and to my team. Probably, looking back on it now, last year I spread myself a little bit too thin, doing too much stuff."
Despite every team changing to the DP01 Panoz chassis, three-time defending series champion Sebastien Bourdais appears to be having more trouble than anyone with the switch. Electrical problems have hampered him since winter testing and, Saturday, he got in only two laps in qualifying before bouncing off a concrete barrier.
The crash brought out a red flag and Bourdais, who spent the rest of the session sitting in his car in a runoff area, was penalized his only fast lap and will start Sunday's race 16th in the 17-car field.
"Too much understeer," the Frenchman said. "I forced the thing and it stepped out a little on exit. It wasn't that bad of a hit, but it bent the toe link and broke the rim.
"To aggravate things, we had a clutch that was creeping so we couldn't get it into neutral, couldn't back up, couldn't do anything. It was stuck in front of the tire. They couldn't push me back or do anything."
