Johnson takes Chase lead with win

Jimmie Johnson jumped back up to the lead of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with his fourth win of the season and his seventh at Martinsville Speedway.

The victory puts Johnson two points ahead of Penske’s Brad Keselowski with just three races to go.

Johnson got maximum points after a gruelling 500 laps. He led more laps than any of his rivals while battling some tough opposition headed by Michael Waltrip Racing’s Clint Bowyer and his Hendrick team-mate Jeff Gordon.

Five-time champion Johnson overtook Keselowski with 14 laps remaining after the former Chase leader elected to stay on the track when the penultimate caution waved with 25 laps to go. Johnson, who led the field at the time, pitted for new left side tyres, a move that most behind him followed.

With more grip at his disposal and in a car often the class of the field on Sunday, Johnson was the first of a number of drivers to dispose of Keselowski’s #2 Dodge before the last caution waved for an incident involving Dale Earnhardt Jr and Carl Edwards.

Once the green waved for the last five laps, Johnson held off the charging Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Kyle Busch, who recovered from an early spin to be in contention but could not prevent Johnson from scoring his most valuable win of the year.

“We just had a great race car,” said Johnson. “And I think we’ve also learned our lesson here in the past in not pitting late and that certainly came into play and we made the right decision there.

I’m so torn with emotion right now with winning here; and I’m so happy to be in the point lead.”

Keselowski fell back to sixth – still a good result from 32nd on the grid. With JGR’s Denny Hamlin all but out of title contention after succumbing to electrical glitches, a two-horse race is now brewing between Johnson and Keselowski.

Bowyer came out on top from a clash with Gordon in the closing laps and moved up to third in the Chase with his fifth place finish behind Kasey Kahne’s Hendrick Chevrolet and the impressive Aric Almirola in the #43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford.

After running among the top 10, Earnhardt’s late spin, caused by contact from Edwards, meant he finished as the last car on the lead lap on his return to Cup competition following a two-week absence with concussion.

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/nascar-news/nascar/johnson-takes-chase-lead-with-win

Alan Jones Tom Jones Juan Jover Oswald Karch Narain Karthikeyan