As he had in testing with the new Panoz DP01 chassis, Team Australia's Will Power led something of a Champ Car 'youth movement' as he swept to pole position for the season-opening Vegas Grand Prix. source: crash.net Casting aside veteran Paul Tracy's Friday benchmark, Power's second career pole was just the tip of the iceberg as far as the series' younger contingent was concerned, with rookies Robert Doornbos and Simon Pagenaud both bagging top five starting spots on the all-new street circuit. Champ Car's established stars, meanwhile, struggled to find the right results on a warm Saturday afternoon. Power's track-record time of 1min 17.629secs was nearly a full second faster than second-in-session Doornbos, who will only start third on debut because of Champ Car's policy of securing the Friday pacesetter a front row spot. As a result, Power and Doornbos were joined in the top three by veteran Paul Tracy, who earned second on the grid after pacing the opening qualifying session. The guaranteed starting spot ended up being a blessing to Tracy, who ran only the ninth quickest time in Saturday's final round. Power needed just four laps to eclipse Tracy's Friday time, but nearly saw it all go for nought when falling gearbox pressure caused him to roll to a stop on the course with ten minutes left on the clock. Luckily, the Australian's grinding halt came after the action had already been halted by a red flag flying over Sebastien Bourdais' damaged #1 McDonald's car. The reigning champion had been running second in the order, and had posted a time that would have put him sixth on the final grid, but contact not only left him unable to continue in the session, the stoppage cost him his best time of the day and left him down in 17th on Sunday's race grid - the worst starting spot in hi' 60-race Champ Car career. In order not leave any doubt about the matter, Power came back out after being towed to the pits for repairs and promptly ran his best lap of the day, setting the new track record.
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