Pole-sitter Power wins Vegas Grand Prix

Second-year driver Will Power started from the pole and finished at the front Sunday, running away with the inaugural Champ Car World Series Vegas Grand Prix.

While three-time defending series champion Sebastien Bourdais and heralded rookies Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud all failed to finish the season-opening 1-hour, 45-minute race, Power never had a problem.

At the finish, it wasn’t even close with Power beating rookie Robert Doornbos by 16.787 seconds, about a half-mile on the 2.44-mile, 12-turn temporary circuit snaking through the streets of downtown Las Vegas.

Power said he has been anticipating his first Champ Car win since last fall’s race in his native Australia, where he started from the pole for the first time.

“I knew we could win after Surfers Paradise where we got taken out when we had the lead,” he said. “This one is sweet.”

It appeared for a while that the race would be a battle between Power, last year’s top rookie, and 2003 series champion Paul Tracy, who started side-by-side on the front row. But Tracy had an early problem in the pits and wound up third.

“Obviously, Will was quick and I was quick. We were pulling away from everybody,” said Tracy, getting a good start on what he hopes will be a comeback year after finishing seventh in the points in 2006. “But, on my first pit stop, we didn’t get all the fuel in and I had to come back in.”

The win was a great birthday present for Team Australia co-owner Derrick Walker, who last celebrated a Champ Car victory in 1999 when Gil de Ferran won at Portland.

Formula One

Fernando Alonso needed all of 10 seconds to sense victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang, Malaysia.

“When I was leading after first corner and I saw who was second, that opened the dream to win the race,” he said Sunday.

Alonso gave his new McLaren-Mercedes team its first Formula One victory since 2005. Rookie Lewis Hamilton, F1’s first black driver, added to the McLaren resurgence by finishing second ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who won the season-opening Australian GP last month.

Pole-sitter Felipe Massa of Ferrari was overtaken by Alonso and Hamilton on the first lap and never challenged. He finished fifth.