Jimmie Johnson: Geico race performance ‘not good enough’ – NASCAR news
Five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson was not pleased with his race performance in the Geico 400 at the Chicagoland Speedway after finishing 10th on the grid on Monday.
The finish now leaves him at 8th place in the overall race for the Sprint Cup championship, 16 points behind leader Kevin Harvick who finished 2nd in the race. This was Johnson’s 10th attempt
at victory at Chicagoland and he is yet to win a race at this track.
Johnson started the race from 12th position and gained quickly to lead a large part of the race. He was gunning for a victory but ran out of fuel at the white flag and ended up at 10th.
Johnson was not pleased but refused to blame the fuel mileage of the car which has been a problem in the past as well. He pointed out that Tony Stewart, who finished in 1st place, had a similar car but he managed to conserve fuel
at the right time.
Johnson said he was surprised that the car ran out of fuel as he had decided to save on gas well before any of the other frontrunners had done so. He felt his aggressive driving style meant that he could not always concentrate on fuel consumption which was
not good enough in this race.
He was confident about future races and was pleased with the performance of the car in the race. He felt that they have a very strong chance in the upcoming chases.
“We ran so well. We had a lot of speed in the car, and then we kind of got clipped there at the very end. Experience pays off,” said Johnson. “We'll just continue on, and we know we've got good race cars, and we're ready for this Chase.”
There is little reason for Johnson to be worried as he has already displayed his resilience in 2010, having clawed back from a 95-point deficit to win the title. However, that was under the old point scoring system and Johnson may find it more difficult
to retain his title this time around.
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