Q&A: Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and Rick Hendrick.

Monday, 20th November 2006

After completing his comeback from the bottom of the Chase for the Championship standings ten weeks ago by taking his first Nextel Cup title, Jimmie Johnson joined crew chief Chad Knaus and team owner Rick Hendrick in a jubilant press conference at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

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As the year went on, Chad did a phenomenal job of pacing himself, building a crew of guys around him that he trusts and believes in that could take some pressure off of him and let him focus on right areas and when he got to the Chase we had the speed that we hoped for and that's really where my confidence came from, that we had our cars lined up, our patch figured out, we were not on our heels, we were applying pressure and racing for the championship instead of just trying to hang on. That was just ?? it's been five years preparation to get to that point, maturing as a team, maturing as driver, crew chief, pit crew, all of the details that it takes. That's really where my confidence came from was we did things right.

We got a slow start to the Chase but we still fell back on the fact that we were fast in all of those races and we were not on our heels. We were putting pressure like we needed to and we were racing like we needed to. That's what kept us motivated and kept us going because we knew we were playing everything out right.

Q:
Did you set the car up specifically to run best on the bottom of the track, and at what point did you decide that that would be to your advantage?

JJ:
At times today when I moved up, I didn't feel like I have made up a lot of time or picked up a lot of speed, so I just went back down to the bottom and found I wasn't losing a lot in front down there. I think some guys were making, were a little faster than us around the top but for what I needed to do today, the bottom was where I wanted to be. A lot of guys could not run down there, so I had a lane where I could keep air on the nose and keep the car turning like I needed to.

:
There's always the risk of the wrong guy winning but the last two years, the best team and the best driver have won the championship. What does that say about the Chase and what they should look into doing going forward?

RH:
You know, it's worked out, I believe in my personal opinion, the Chase needs to pay more points for wins. That's my opinion. And I would like to see a bigger spread between tenth and first, the guy that gets in tenth, versus the guys first; more points there.