Rahal struggles with electrical problem in debut

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Graham Rahal's introduction to the Champ Car World Series wasn't what he had hoped for Friday.

The 18-year-old son of longtime racing star Bobby Rahal, heralded as one of the best young American talents to come along in years, wound up 15th out of 17 drivers in the first qualifying session for the season-opening Vegas Grand Prix.

"It was a session of problems," said Rahal, whose fast lap on the new downtown street circuit was nearly 3 1/2 seconds slower than Paul Tracy, who won the provisional pole. "Before that, my car was acting real good and I was really pumped.

"At the end of the session, I thought I had two good laps left and then we had a shifting problem. I couldn't shift up or down. We think we had an electrical problem that led to the shifting problem."

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate Sebastien Bourdais also experienced electrical problems, but overcame them enough to run third in the first of two qualifying sessions for the opener.

"It's a good thing that there are two qualifying sessions because we should definitely be up there (Saturday)," Rahal said.

His father won the 1986 Indianapolis 500 and is a three-time champion in what was then the CART series.

TOP ROOKIE: While Rahal struggled, Simon Pagenaud of France, one of seven other rookies in the Champ Car field, got off to a great start.

The 22-year-old Pagenaud, last year's Atlantic Series champion, was thrilled with his ride after placing his Team Australia entry second on the grid.

"I couldn't believe that I would be in the top three qualifiers for the Friday on my first race of Champ Car," he said. "So it's kind of a relief because it means that I'm already on the pace.

"I still need to work a lot on myself and the car, too. I think we have a pretty good shot for a good place overall, even at this race. So we just need to keep focused, try to understand what we did today, which was a very good run."

All of the drivers will have a chance Saturday to better their first-round times and Bourdais, the three-time defending series champion, said he expects times to drop again as more rubber gets laid down on the circuit.

That's good news for Pagenaud, who said, "This car has 500 more horsepower than my Atlantics car. It's great. And it's so much fun on this racetrack.

"Tomorrow, I think we'll be right on the pace again," he added. "We are looking for the first or the second row."

WHO'S UP FRONT: With everyone driving the brand new Panoz DP01 race cars, there is some question which teams will figure it out first.

After his strong run on Friday, Tracy looked at the top of the speed chart and said nothing is really different.

His Forsythe Championship Racing team and Newman/Haas/Lanigan have been among the best in the series for years, while Team Australia, which fields cars for Pagenaud and Will Power, last year's top rookie, was the surprise of 2006.

"I think the key players are still going to be the key players," Tracy said. "Obviously, Sebastien's team is great. He's a great driver, a phenomenal driver. He hasn't won three championships for not being a great driver.

"It's just the usual teams are up here now, Team Australia, the Aussie Vineyards team with (co-owner Derrick Walker, they came on really strong the end of last year. They have good engineering, good people. They have a core group of people that Derrick has had for a long time and two young drivers that are really hungry to show what they can do."

He noted that 2006 series runner-up Justin Wilson was fourth Friday in a car fielded by RSports, a new combination of RuSport and Rocketsports, two teams that competed last year.

"Really, the big question mark right now is where Justin with his new team and everything, how that has kind of transferred over, how that is all going to pan out," Tracy said. "But the normal teams are going to be the strong ones."

That's Racin' | 04/06/2007 | Rahal struggles with electrical problem in debut