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No, Jimmie Johnson is not enjoying being an underdog as the Chase begins
Jimmie Johnson is in an unfamiliar role entering the 2016 Chase.
The six-time champion’s team hasn’t shown much speed this season. Yeah, Johnson has two race wins, but they both came within the first five races of the season.
He’s tied for 11th in the series with 10 top-10 finishes. 11th! That’s also the points position he was in after the Southern 500 at Darlington before sneaking back into the top 10 in points before the points reset for the start of the Chase.
This whole thing is new for Johnson. And he’s not a fan of it.
“Hell, I’d rather be dominating and be on top and be the top pick,” Johnson said. “I don’t like where we’re at. We’re working hard. There’s a lot of optimism and a lot of great things happening. We just need to deliver consistently and execute at the track.
“The way that the Chase works, if we can run in the top five and stay alive and make it to Homestead, you know, we do have some time to sort things out and get back to where we need to be.”
Johnson has crashed out of four races and finished outside of the top 20 in eight of the first 26 races of the season. His average finish of 15.3 is 12th-best in the series and his 266 laps led — the most of anyone at Hendrick Motorsports — rank ninth.
He said he thinks Hendrick Motorsports’ speed disparity to others is coming via aerodynamics.
“I don’t feel like it’s engines,” Johnson said. “I think it’s in the aero side of things You know, the gains that we’ve made, we’ve come with a more refined car and a better car aerodynamically. That’s where we’re seeing the speed pick up … But I really feel like it’s in the aero side of things, especially from what I’ve felt through the racecar in these better races that we’ve had.”
He also had a fascinating answer when he was asked about the concept of team alliances within NASCAR. Johnson and Chase Elliott are the only two Hendrick Motorsports drivers in the Chase while Stewart-Haas Racing has three of its four drivers in the Chase. And all three of SHR’s drivers have won a race, while Johnson is the only race-winner at HMS this season.
Stewart-Haas has been technically-aligned with Hendrick Motorsports since its inception. The team is leaving Chevrolet at the end of the season and moving to Ford, breaking the HMS alliance.
“I think that [Joe Gibbs Racing] and Hendrick and these bigger teams will really have to think hard about alliances that they put together. The reason being is, you know, using Hendrick and Gibbs as the example, and I’ll use Stewart-Haas as an example for us, they get our best stuff, and they’re not a small organization. They have a huge engineering staff.
“So they take our best equipment, that’s part of the deal, fully refined, what we’re racing, then their engineering staff gets to work on it and make it better. Same thing is going on at Gibbs. They’re providing all that equipment to [Furniture Row Racing] and they’re smart people. That’s pretty good, but I’m going to tweak this and that, and they make it better yet.
“I understand the business dynamic, but it’s tricky. It hurts to be outrun by somebody in your equipment. But Ganassi [also technically aligned with Hendrick], as well. They’re a big company with a lot of smart people, and we’re handing them a race-winning package that they’re then making better. It’s a tricky situation to be in. But from a business standpoint, it’s something that we have to do to keep the size and cover the overhead problem at Hendrick Motorsports.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
