Jimmie Johnson’s playoff fate still uncertain

INDIANAPOLIS — Jimmie Johnson doesn’t have a playoff spot locked up going into the final race of the regular season.

The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion is in a 48-race losing streak headed into the Brickyard 400 at rain-drenched Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the No. 48 Chevrolet team has been inconsistent all season.

Johnson has a 19-point edge over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman in the battle for the 15th position on the 16-driver playoff grid. That should be enough to get Johnson into the 10-race postseason, but a surprise winner could jumble the final berths.

“We’ve had a tough year,” Johnson said Saturday. “It’s been extremely frustrating and extremely difficult to live through, but we are all still very eager to turn it around and know that we will.”

Johnson is a four-time winner at Indy, and even in a crummy season, he doesn’t discount how quickly things could flip in his favor. He won his record-tying seventh title in 2016, and despite three wins last season, he peaked in the first quarter of the year and was 10th in the final standings. His last victory was at Dover International Speedway on June 4, 2017.

“A win is the way to turn it around,” Johnson said.

NASCAR moved the regular-season finale this year to Indianapolis as officials from the sanctioning body and the track tried to make the Brickyard a bigger draw. The race has struggled for much of the past decade in its traditional summer slot in part because of heat, lack of on-track action and low stakes. Now, as the 26th race on the schedule, the event has increased meaning because it will finalize the playoff field.

Expectations have been doused, though, first by the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts playing their season opener across town on race day, then a torrent of rain. All activity at the track was washed out Friday and Saturday, including Cup Series qualifying. The field was set by points, with Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. — this season’s so-called “Big 3” — lined up first through third.

The washout Saturday prevented teams from getting any track time prior to the race, and all will start with setups based on past notes. All previous experience was during July, when the temperature made the surface of the track hot and slick. The move to September should favor drivers, particularly as they adjust their cars.

A victory in the regular season earns a driver an automatic berth into the playoffs, and in addition to the dominant Busch, Harvick and Truex, seven other drivers have locked up spots in that fashion: Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. Four drivers — Aric Almirola, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson — are locked in by points.

The Cup Series race was moved up an hour, to 1 p.m. EDT, in hopes of avoiding rain in today’s forecast.

The Xfinity Series race, scheduled for Saturday, was moved to 10 a.m. Monday, with the starting lineup set by points.