LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Simon Pagenaud cruised to P1 of the time sheet with 7 minutes, 19 seconds left in the 45-minute practice session preceding the three rounds of qualifications for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Pagenaud, driving the No. 77 entry for Schmidt Hamilton HP Motorsports, posted a lap of 1 minute, 08.0960 seconds on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary street circuit. The track record is 1:06.6886 by Sebastien Bourdais in 2006.

Click it: Practice 3 results || Qualifying groups

Seven different teams were represented in the top 10 and the top 24 cars were separated by less than a second.

Defending race winner Will Power was second (1:08.1036) in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske car and Mike Conway was third (1:08.1112) in the No. 17 blue eCigs entry for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (1:08.1790) was fourth in the No. 1 DHL car for Andretti Autosport and Graham Rahal moved to the top five late with a lap of 1:08.1803 in the No. 15 Big O Tires car for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Dario Franchitti, Charlie Kimball and AJ Allmendinger, Simona de Silvestro and Helio Castroneves also were in the top 10. Allmendinger is competed on the Long Beach circuit for the first time since 2006. De Silvestro won the Atlantic race at Long Beach on this date in 2008.

"It’s getting closer," said Allmendinger, who is competing in his second IZOD IndyCar Series race. "It just blows my mind how close everybody is. I got out of the car with 30 seconds to go and I was fourth, felt pretty good about it, and by the time I take my helmet off I’m eighth.

"It just shows how competitive the IZOD IndyCar Series is. It makes it fun, but it makes it frustrating a little at times, too. We’re getting there. There’s just a couple of corners on the racetrack that I’m giving up some time, so I got to keep working on that."

Qualifying is at 5 p.m. (ET) with real-time Timing & Scoring and the IMS Radio Network broadcast on indycar.com and INDYCAR 13.