LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Sebastien Bourdais thought it might be his day after all when he found himself running third Sunday despite having two flat tires in the first 23 laps of the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix.

Unfortunately, for the three-time defending champion of the Champ Car World Series, another flat tire knocked him back to the pack and then a collision with one of the concrete barriers lining the temporary downtown street circuit ended his race.

``We've had the worst weekend I can even remember,'' said Bourdais, who completed only 30 of the 68 laps and finished 13th in the 17-car field. ``Just about anything that could go wrong went wrong.

``First day, mechanical issue. Second day, I messed up (and hit the wall) and, today, we got bad luck again with those flat tires and we still managed to kind of make it stick.''

It was obvious that the Frenchman, who has 23 victories in 60 Champ Car events, had one of the fastest cars on the track as he slashed through traffic, moving from 16th at the start to third on lap 23. But another flat sent him to the pits the next time around the 2.44-mile, 12-turn circuit.

Even then Bourdais still felt like he could get a decent finish.

``After that, I was really pushing,'' he said. ``First to stay on the lead lap and second to try to catch up, and I think we were doing that. A lot of things were going through my mind. I was trying to find out what we could do about the situation and I just messed up.

``I braked too late, lost my brake point reference and right then I knew I wasn't going to make the corner. But actually, I did make it. The tires are going so far on the racetrack that I was about a meter and a half from the wall, but I ripped up the front corner.''

The race was even worse for new Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate Graham Rahal.

The 18-year-old rookie didn't even make it to turn one of his debut race.

Rahal, the son of longtime racing star Bobby Rahal, said he was forced off line by Dan Clarke.

``He moved over because he realized he wasn't going to be able to pass (Neel) Jani,'' Rahal said of Clarke. ``He moved into me and pushed me into the wall. It worked out for him for a while but then he crashed, too.''

Rahal started the race in his backup car after crashing his primary car in practice on Saturday.

``It's tough to take anything out of this. ... The entire team just had a bad weekend. Sebastian's side, our side, it's just been tough.''

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TIRE TRACKS: The drivers went into Sunday's season-opening race concerned that the tires wouldn't last on the new track.

In the end, though, the biggest problem was punctures.

Still, Joe Barbieri, manager of motorsports for tire manufacturer Bridgestone, said changes will definitely be made for the 2008 Las Vegas race.

``The speeds were 15 to 19 miles per hour quicker than what we expected,'' Barbieri said. ``With all the dust and all, it's really hard on these tires. I guarantee we'll bring a harder tire here next year.''

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RACING DUTCHMAN: Robert Doornbos, driving in his first Champ Car race, finished a distant second place behind winner Will Power.

The driver from Holland is the first rookie to finish on the three-man podium in his first race since Britain's Nigel Mansell in 1993. But he said it was no comfortable Sunday drive.

``The pit stops went well,'' said Doornbos, who comes to Champ Car from Formula One, where he was a test driver and part-time racer. ``A very long (stop), the second one, because we had a different strategy. Then I had to save fuel, which is also a new thing for me because the team kept telling me, `You have to save more fuel, more fuel.'

``I was like, I'm racing, what do you want me to do, valet parking or something?'''

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GOOD DAY: Champ Car president Steve Johnson called the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix a success, especially considering all of the unknowns coming into the season.

``There's always a lot of risk when you have your first race of the season at an inaugural event,'' Johnson said. ``Throw in a new car, throw in eight new drivers, and I'd have to say the event was a home run.''

Race crews worked for more than a week turning the streets of downtown Las Vegas into a 2.4-mile track. Circuit manager Chris Kneifel said more than 90 percent of the streets on the course were repaved, and none were more difficult than the intersection of Ogden Avenue and Main Street, in the midst of several high-rise casino hotels.

There, where drivers approached a railroad underpass before the final turn into the front straightaway, cars were sent airborne by a bump during Friday practices. Kneifel and his crews rebuilt the intersection that night.

``We removed the intersection,'' said Kneifel, a former driver. ``We literally cut it out and dropped the elevation by 9 inches and we brought it to level.''

Race president Jim Freudenberg said he doesn't expect to change the track for next year's race, only to add more grandstands near the course.

Although the grandstands looked to be only about half full, race officials said they stopped selling seats more than two hours before the green flag dropped. Thousands more watched from street level at no charge, or from hotel rooms near the circuit.

``This thing turned out to be actually over-the-top from what I would have considered acceptable for the first year,'' race co-owner Dale Jensen said. ``I can't tell you how ecstatic I am about how this thing turned out.''