Jimmie Johnson not giving up hope for Sprint Cup – NASCAR news
Jimmie Johnson was frustrated after yet another disappointing performance in the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire.
He finished 18th in the race which leaves him at 10th in the overall points standings, 29 points behind leader Tony Stewart.
Johnson said that the car did not perform the way he had expected it to. He was satisfied with the practice sessions and qualifying but the car showed no speed in the race and due to his track position, he found it very hard to build any momentum.
During the race, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson bumped into each other, causing Johnson to almost spin out of the race. He lost 4 positions during that slide and never recovered from it.
“We hit a couple of times,” Johnson said. “One of the times we hit, it whipped the wheel out of my hand and bent the right-front suspension and then we were kind of dead in the water after that.”
Johnson felt that Busch was being stubborn but did not blame him for it. He said that it was everybody’s strategy to be stubborn and gain track position as it was very important in the race.
Johnson, though, was not giving up on his title chances just yet and felt that with eight races still to go, he had a chance provided he performed well in all the races from here on.
“You’ve just got to take every race as it comes,” Johnson said. “You never know what’s going to happen, and in my experience in winning five [titles], we lost the points lead due to a wreck in the last lap at Talladega and still came back and won. So anything
can happen.”
If anyone can do it, it is Johnson. Johnson has twice come back from bad starts to the Chase to win the championship. In the 2006 season, he finished in the 39th position in the first Chase race, and then followed it up with five consecutive finishes in
the top two to win the championship.
In the 2010 championship, he finished 25th in the opening chase race which left him with a 26-point deficit. He still managed to overcome that and went on to win the championship again.
However, if Johnson manages to win this time around, it will arguably be the best comeback seen in the Chase format to date.
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