2012 Sprint Cup performance review of 7 time Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson – NASCAR Special
The 37-year-old Californian NASCAR racer is going through a patch of average performance recently as compared to his performance from 2006 to 2010 when he clinched the Sprint Cup Champion title five successive times.
The season did not started good for Johnson. In the very first race of the season, the Daytona 500, Johnson finished a disappointing 42nd. On the very 2nd lap of the race, Johnson was involved in a crash with Elliott Sadler which caused severe damage to
Johnson’s car and he had to retire.
After Subway Fresh Fit 500, Johnson moved up to 37th position on drivers’ championship standings, scoring 18 points and finishing 4th in the race. Ending the Kobalt Tools 400 with a silver medal, Johnson moved up to 23rd position on drivers’ standings. Finishing
9th in Bristol Motor Speedway, Johnson further consolidated his position on drivers’ standings at moved up to 11th.
Having suffered an oil leak, Johnson was still able to finish 10th in Auto Club 400. Despite finishing 10th, Johnson still moved up 2 positions on drivers’ standings and had a total of 156 points to his name, only 1 point behind the number 8th Clint Bowyer.
More tough luck followed Johnson and he finished 12th at Martinsville due to a crash on the first green-white-checker attempt. Another silver medal awaited Johnson after Samsung Mobile 500 followed by a bronze medal in STP 400 and a 6thposition in Capital
City 400. After Capital City 400, Johnson stood 6th on drivers’ standings with 314 points.
Aaron’s 499 at Talladega was a disaster for Johnson where he finished 35th, after his engine failed at lap 110, worst finish of the season for Johnson after Daytona. Bojangles’ Southern 500 was a total opposite from the last race as far as Johnson was concerned
because he won his first race of the championship. After an 11th finish in Coca-Cola 600, Johnson repeated his performance of Bojangles’ Southern 500 and won the FedEx 400, his second victory in Sprint Cup 2012.
Next four races, Pocono 400, Quicken Loans 400, Toyota/Save Mart 350 and Quaker State 400 resulted in 4 Top 10 endings for Johnson finishing 4th, 5th, 5th and 6th respectively. By the end of Quaker State 400, Johnson had moved up to 3rd position on drivers’
championship standings with 610 points.
In Coke Zero 400, Johnson had to retire from the race because of a crash on lap 124, thus ending 36th. Following a 7th position finish in Lenox Industrial Tools 301, Johnson clinched his 3rd victory of the season in Brickyard 400.
In the next 12 races of the cup, Johnson won 3 silver medals, 2 bronze medals and at the end of Hollywood Casino 400, with only 4 more races to go in the season, Johnson stood 2nd on drivers’ championship standings with 2243 points.
With a victory in Tums Fast Relief 500, Johnson reached the top of drivers’ championship standings with 2291 points, only 2 points ahead of Brad Keselowski. AAA Texas 500 also proved to a victory for Johnson, his 5th in the cup which allowed him to consolidate
the 1st position drivers’ championship standings putting him in a lead of 29 points ahead of Keselowski. With only 2 races to go in the cup, Johnson had a golden chance to claim the title.
But after AdvoCare 500, Johnson dropped down to 2nd in drivers’ standings after finishing 32nd in the race whereas Keselowski finished 6th. In the final race of the cup, Ford 400, Johnson still had a chance to claim the title but to his disappointment he
could not do so because he finished 36nd whereas Keselowski finished 5th. Not only Johnson could not win the cup, he was even deprived of the silver medal because Clint Bowyer gave an extraordinary performance in Ford 400 finishing 2nd.
At the end of the season, Johnson finished 3rd. A result that could have been much better at had Johnson wrapped up the cup in a better way than he did.
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