Last weekend we saw a great battle for the win between two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers. Since Martin Truex Jr’s victory in last Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the Sonoma Raceway over his teammate Kyle Busch, it led to a key stat to come out.

Since the start of the 2016 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, Busch has won a series leading 21 times. But, Truex is quietly only one win behind him (20) in that same time span.

Most consider Busch the most dominating driver in the series right now but stats show that Truex is actually right on par with his new teammate.

This season, no one has more wins than them with each scoring four a piece. They’ve literally won half of the races run this season.

Combine the fact that they’ve won the race at the Chicagoland Speedway in each of the last three years with Truex winning in 2016 and 2017 while Busch won in dramatic fashion last year and you get the top two favorites to take the checkered flag first in Sunday’s Camping World 400 (3 p.m. ET/NBCSN/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Chicagoland Speedway, however, has long been one of Busch’s best tracks – and he’s performed best in the last few years. In addition to his 2018 win at the track, he won from the pole position in 2008 – the only driver in history to win from pole. He has earned an all-time high four pole positions in all.

In just the last six years Busch has won three poles and one race. His 399 laps led during that time frame is 69.9 percent of his career total laps led (573) at Chicago. He has six top-10 finishes in the last seven races. And Busch has three Xfinity Series and five Gander Outdoor Truck Series wins at Chicago, too.

Last year’s Monster Energy Series victory is among the most memorable in Busch’s career as he prevailed in a spirited last lap exchange with Kyle Larson. Larson used a “slide job” maneuver to get by Busch out of Turn 2 and then Busch caught back up to Larson and the two made contact as Busch got around Larson between Turns 3 and 4 en route to the checkered flag. The two shook hands after one of the more exciting finishes of the 2018 season.

That success all lines up well with his current season’s work. He has a series-best 15 top-10 finishes in 16 races, including top-five finishes in his last four races. He finished runner-up to Truex Sunday at Sonoma. He’s led laps in 12 races – double digit laps in nine of those. And he trails reigning series champion Joey Logano by a single point in the championship standings.

“Back when we first started racing there in the summer, it was a night race, so with a hot track now and the surface worn out more now, it certainly tends to play to my strengths and as we saw last year, we can put on a really good race with the heat, combined with the worn-out surface,’’ Busch said.

What about Truex?

Since his first win of 2019 – at Richmond on April 13 – Truex has only gone more than two weeks without a trip to Victory Lane only one time. There were three weeks between his win at Charlotte and last week on the Sonoma, Calif. road course.

He’s led 493 laps in his four wins – that’s 95.1 percent of all his laps led (518) this season.

Interestingly though, in his 23 career victories, Truex has never won back-to-back races on the schedule.

“I think JGR, all of our cars are running good at places throughout the season but for us personally on the 19, the last couple of mile-and-a-halves we’ve really turned a corner,’’ Truex said. “Michigan was a great run for us, Charlotte obviously, winning there was big.

“We started out the year kind of searching a bit on the mile-and-a-halves and the bigger tracks with the 550-horsepower package. For us, I definitely feel like we’ve learned a lot the past month and half and really turned a corner there. That has given us a lot of confidence and we feel like Chicago will be a good race for us.’’

Despite all of that, I do think there are three drivers that can compete with them for a victory on Sunday afternoon. All three reside from Team Penske.

Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano has won half as many races (two) as Kyle Busch and last week’s Sonoma champion Martin Truex Jr., but he has been good enough to maintain his position atop the points standings – by a single point over four-time winner Busch.

Logano’s 23rd-place finish at Sonoma matched his worst finish of the season – at Atlanta in February – and snapped a three-race top-10 run. But he still maintains a one-point edge over four-race winner Kyle Busch atop the points standings.

Logano has only led laps in one of the last five races (163 of 203 laps in his Michigan win two weeks ago). The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford has never won at Chicago before, but earned the pole position for the 2013 race and has top-10 finishes in six of the last seven races – including the last five consecutively. His best showing at Chicago is runner-up to Martin Truex Jr. in 2016.

He’s going to be a threat to win this weekend and has better betting odds too. So does his teammate Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski, is one of only four multi-time winners (also Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick) at this week’s Chicagoland Speedway venue – taking the trophies in 2012 and 2014. He shows up with eight consecutive top-10 finishes there and a pair of front row starts (outside pole in 2013 and 2016). His 9.2 average finish is best among active drivers with more than five starts. And he’s led laps in seven of his 10 starts.

It’s been five races since Keselowski earned his third win of 2019 – at Kansas. Two of this three victories (at Atlanta and Kansas) and one of his two runner-up finishes (at Las Vegas) have come on 1.5-mile tracks similar to Chicagoland.

So, will it be a JGR car or a Penske car landing in victory lane on Sunday? Combined, they’ve won 15 of 16 races run in 2019, so why bet against them?