Joey Logano rallied to a third-place finish in Sunday night at Chicagoland Speedway and that effort was good enough to keep the Team Penske driver atop the points standings as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series arrives in Daytona Beach for Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

It was inspired driving by the reigning Monster Energy Series champion, who had not earned any stage points on the day but still managed to collect his ninth top five of the season and third top-three run in the last five races. He’s won twice on the year (at Las Vegas and Michigan) and his work at Chicago was good enough to extend his championship lead to 18 points over Kyle Busch.

Daytona International Speedway has been hit-or-miss for the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford. He won the Daytona 500 in 2015 and led 11 laps and finished fourth in the season opener this year.

The Daytona summer race, however, has been more challenging for the team of late. Logano has crashed out of the last two 400-milers but finished fourth in the last two Daytona 500s. He has six top-10 finishes in the last nine races at the track, but only led 74 laps (in 21 starts) and posted an average finish of 17.0 in his career there.