Power quickest in opening practice

The Australian has a fine record at the track, having won the Champ Car finale there in 2008 and started from pole last year.

As the session settled following some frenetic late place-swapping that saw a Ganassi one-two swiftly become a Penske one-two-three, Power emerged on top by 0.1005 seconds over his Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves, another former Long Beach winner.

Ganassi's Scott Dixon denied Penske a top three sweep by pushing Ryan Briscoe back to fourth late on, with Dario Franchitti fifth in the second Ganassi car.

Tony Kanaan was Andretti Autosport's top runner in sixth, as his team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay fell to eighth in the end after a long spell in second. They were split by Fazzt's Alex Tagliani, who had the only significant accident of the session when he crashed at Turn 5.

Justin Wilson (Dreyer & Reinbold) and EJ Viso (KV) completed the top ten.

Pos  Driver               Team                    Time        Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske                  1m11.4038s
 2.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                  1m11.5044s  + 0.1005s
 3.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                 1m11.5430s  + 0.1391s
 4.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                  1m11.5477s  + 0.1439s
 5.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi                 1m11.6379s  + 0.2340s
 6.  Tony Kanaan          Andretti                1m11.6410s  + 0.2371s
 7.  Alex Tagliani        Fazzt                   1m11.7610s  + 0.3572s
 8.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti                1m11.9261s  + 0.5223s
 9.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold       1m11.9741s  + 0.5703s
10.  EJ Viso              KV                      1m11.9886s  + 0.5847s
11.  Hideki Mutoh         Newman/Haas/Lanigan     1m12.1321s  + 0.5847s
12.  Mario Moraes         KV                      1m12.1698s  + 0.7283s
13.  Mike Conway          Dreyer & Reinbold       1m12.2397s  + 0.8358s
14.  Raphael Matos        Luczo Dragon/de Ferran  1m12.4120s  + 1.0081s
15.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                     1m12.4429s  + 1.0391s
16.  Marco Andretti       Andretti                1m12.4582s  + 1.0543s
17.  Dan Wheldon          Panther                 1m12.5258s  + 1.1220s
18.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                    1m12.5832s  + 1.1794s
19.  Takuma Sato          KV                      1m12.6696s  + 1.2657s
20.  Graham Rahal         Sarah Fisher            1m13.1848s  + 1.7810s
21.  Danica Patrick       Andretti                1m13.3593s  + 1.9555s
22.  Mario Romancini      Conquest                1m13.4407s  + 2.0368s
23.  Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne              1m14.0553s  + 2.6514s
24.  Bertrand Baguette    Conquest                1m14.4159s  + 3.0121s
25.  Milka Duno           Dale Coyne              1m19.5348s  + 5.1188s