INDIANAPOLIS – The Month of May keeps getting more and more perfect for Simon Pagenaud. Two weeks ago the Team Penske driver charged from an eighth place starting spot in the INDYCAR Grand Prix to win the race in dramatic fashion in the end. This past weekend, Pagenaud won the pole for the 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 (11 a.m. ET/NBC/INDYCAR Radio Network). On Monday, the Frenchman was once again on top of the speed charts.

Pagenaud, circled the famed 2.5-mile oval with a top speed of 228.441 mph in his No. 22 Chevrolet to end up P1 on a busy Monday afternoon of practice. His time though, he mentioned that you may want to take with a grain of salt.

“It was really good to be able to run with a lot of people on track,” said the fastest driver of the day. “I thought at the end it was almost like a race. Everybody was on track. So that was entertaining. It was a good way to see how the car was reacting.

T”he tricky part is that it’s so cold that every car feels good today, I think. Obviously we have a good idea on where our car is at, but you want to see what the competition is like, as well, and that’s why you saw me running a lot behind people and cycle back to the back to try to understand who was strong and how they were driving their cars.

“But I think we’ve got a really good balance so far. I think we still need to find a little more front grip alone and in traffic, and I think we’ll be in really good shape. Then the trick part is going to be to find the right level of downforce for the race. Obviously, like I said, with the temperature changing, that’s a very relevant point that is very important to work on with the engineers.”

See, this practice session was added in 2014 and has been the best practice session for any race for any series on any track each year. For example, in just two hours run this year, we saw 2,469 laps turned.

We constantly saw group of 10+ cars running in tow all session which is why Monday’s speeds were much different than any session we saw last week.

Last Tuesday through Friday, we only focused on the no tow reports. I mean, with qualifying ahead last weekend, why focus on overall speeds when those were all run with tows? The no tow report told an accurate story on who would be strong in qualifying.

Now that qualifying is behind us, it’s all about speed again. That’s how Pagenaud on his last lap moved to the top of the speed charts.

His teammate Josef Newgarden was P2 in his No. 2 Chevrolet. The Tennessee native turned in a speed of 228.273 mph. Three Honda’s were next up with James Hinchcliffe (227.994 mph), Scott Dixon (227.951 mph) and Alexander Rossi (227.660 mph) rounding out the top five.

Charlie Kimball was sixth in his No. 23 Chevrolet with a lap of 227.645 mph. That’s five different teams in the top six of the speed chart.

Helio Castroneves (227.614 mph) and Will Power (227.480 mph) gave Penske all four cars in the top eight as they were seventh and eighth respectively.

Here are my main takeaways from Monday’s practice.

Conditions On Monday Not Ideal For Race Weekend

While I said above that today’s practice report was the first true report to gauge who will be strong in this weekend’s race, it doesn’t actually tell the whole story. Conditions on Monday were cool and overcast which is the polar opposite on what we will see this weekend.

The temperatures were in the 60’s today were Sunday is forecasted to be in the 80’s. Monday’s conditions were ripe for good action. That’s why we saw so much passing on track.

The drivers have said all month that if the conditions were cooler on race day then we’d see an intense race with a lot of passing. But, if the conditions were warmer, then we’d see a similar race to what we saw last year.

That’s why Monday was a great day of action, but not a real indicator for what we will see this weekend.

Tight Gap From Top To Bottom

The field is already the closest in Indy 500 history. The 1.892 difference between the fastest qualifier in Simon Pagenaud to the slowest qualifier in Pippa Mann is the smallest gap in Indy 500 history. Well, from 1st to 32nd on Monday was separated by only 0.8032-seconds. The gap from 1st to last was 1.1387-seconds.

That should make the margin of error tiny on Sunday.

Marcus Ericsson Tagged The Turn 3 Wall

We saw the sixth incident of the month when rookie Marcus Ericsson tagged the Turn 3 wall with about 20 minutes-to-go in practice. Ericsson, went high to avoid the slowing Felix Rosenqvist and barely scrapped the SAFER barrier as a result.

Luckily, he was able to bring his car back down pit lane with minor repairs needed.

Honda and Chevy Even So Far

Chevy may have swept the front row for the second consecutive year and put five cars in the first 2 Rows, but Honda had good race pace in practice on Monday. We saw five Chevy’s and three Honda’s the top eight. But, if you go to the top 10 in general, it was split 5-5. Through the top 12? 6-6.

That bodes well for Sunday.