NASCAR Sprint Cup: Power Ranking Jimmie Johnson's Title-Winning Seasons
Jimmie Johnson is a six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion.
You’ll find a good amount of people who consider him the greatest driver to ever get behind the wheel of a race car, and he remains just one championship away from tying immortals Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt for the most titles in NASCAR history.
Johnson came up well short of that goal in 2014. He struggled to find consistency from week to week and was eliminated from championship contention with four races remaining in the Chase.
Despite a season that was underwhelming—only by his unbelievably high standards—Johnson remains one of the favorites to lift the Sprint Cup trophy again in 2015 and write another chapter in his legendary career.
Before the season begins, let’s take a look at and rank each of Johnson’s six titles, including his historic run of five straight between 2006-2010.
They're ranked based on their significance to the sport and to the driver.
Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines!
6. 2013
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Johnson, loser of back-to-back Sprint Cup championships at that point, opened up his 2013 campaign with his second career win at Daytona International Speedway’s iconic Daytona 500. The Great American Race was the first of six wins he’d secure in the season ahead, on the way to lifting the sixth, and as of now last, Sprint Cup championship trophy of his storied career.
But it didn’t come easy, and if you paid attention to the end of the regular season, you’d have been forgiven if you wondered aloud whether Johnson would be able to rebound from the worst stretch of his career in time for the Chase.
Johnson ended the regular season with a 40th-place finish at Richmond. That’s not the type of momentum you want to bring into the Chase in any scenario, but it was his fourth straight finish of 28th or worse, which made it even more troubling.
He opened the Chase with a pair of top-five finishes at Chicagoland and New Hampshire before holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the win at Dover.
Johnson’s foe this time around was Matt Kenseth, who held the points lead until Talladega.
The Chase remained close until he paired a win at Texas with a third-place finish at Phoenix, in a race where Kenseth finished a disastrous 23rd, to open up a sizable lead heading for home at Homestead. Johnson, knowing he just needed to stay out of trouble and middle of the road to secure the title, didn’t take any chances, finishing ninth and breaking his Sprint Cup “drought.”
5. 2010
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Johnson captured his record fifth straight Sprint Cup championship with a come-from-behind victory at Homestead, becoming the first driver in the history of the Chase format to win the Cup title when entering the final race without the points lead.
Denny Hamlin led Johnson by 15 points entering Homestead-Miami Speedway for the Ford 400, but he had a rough day and couldn’t hang on for his first title.
Carl Edwards won the race, but Johnson kept himself clean and in the mix until the end. His consistent performance on the track, resulting in a second-place finish, was enough to leapfrog over Hamlin.
Denny ran into some early trouble when contact with Greg Biffle sent his car into a spin and damaged the front.
The incident pushed him all the way to the back of the pack into 37th place, forcing him to work all day just to get back into contention. He ended up with a 14th-place finish, well behind Johnson, who upped his NASCAR record with a fifth straight title.
4. 2007
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How good was Johnson in 2007?
Let the numbers speak for themselves.
He finished the season with a career-best 10 victories. He also tied career marks with 20 top-10s and 24 top-20s. He was in contention each and every week, winning both races at Richmond, Atlanta and Martinsville along the way, among others.
He entered the Chase as the points leader and battled it out with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon—who had a seven-win season himself—throughout the Chase for the then-Nextel Cup.
It was compelling television the whole way through the Chase.
Gordon snagged the lead from Johnson with a win at the UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega, holding onto the top spot until Johnson seized it for good with his win in the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Another win in the penultimate race of the Chase at Phoenix the following week all but sealed the deal on a second consecutive championship.
Johnson, despite finishing behind Gordon at Homestead in the Chase-ending race, had more than enough points in the bank to secure back-to-back titles. But he said it wasn't easy, per Ryan McGee of ESPN.com.
"But emotionally, that was a really tough year because we were racing Jeff [Gordon] and the 24 team all year for the championship. We're teammates. Our cars and crews were housed in the same race shop. Jeff was the guy who gave me my big break. We were really close friends. It made for a weird experience."
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3. 2008
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When the command to start engines was bellowed at the 2008 Daytona 500, Johnson was, like now, beginning the pursuit of history. Only NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough had ever won three consecutive Sprint Cup championships, achieving the feat when it was called the Winston Cup Series from 1976-1978, and Johnson had a chance to replicate that feat.
And he did it without a whole lot of drama during the Chase.
After Biffle won the first two races of the Chase at New Hampshire and Dover—Johnson finished second and fifth, respectively—Johnson got off the deck to win at Kansas, Martinsville and Phoenix, opening a huge points lead going into Homestead.
How huge?
He could’ve finished 36th and not led a single lap at the Ford 400 and still lifted the Sprint Cup trophy for a record-tying third time in a row.
He didn’t take it quite that far, though, finishing 15th, with Edwards once again the winner.
Johnson had tied one of NASCAR’s most impressive records, but the following season, he’d stand alone.
2. 2009
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The 2009 Chase was over nearly as soon as it began.
Johnson, who was looking to stand alone as the first driver in NASCAR history to win four straight championships, came out of the gate charging, winning three of the first fives races in the Chase and building an insurmountable lead.
He was pretty much able to coast from there, though he did capture one more checkered flag at Phoenix.
It was over after the Amp Energy 500—maybe even earlier—when Johnson finished sixth and opened a 184-point lead over his closest competitor, Mark Martin.
The pair entered Homestead separated by 92 points, with 195 potentially available, meaning that Johnson just had to stay in his car and finish the race without any sort of disaster to set the record. Not content with just going through the motions, he competed the whole way through, finishing in the top five, seven spots ahead of Martin, to secure the historic championship by 141 points.
There was never any doubt.
1. 2006
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Let’s see how many cliches we can fit in here.
You always remember your first.
A march of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
OK, that’s enough.
Nobody could’ve known when Johnson won the 2006 Sprint Cup championship that he would be embarking on a historic stretch of championships that would catapult him into the conversation of NASCAR’s greatest drivers in history.
But everyone starts somewhere.
Johnson joined the Sprint Cup Series full time in 2002 and immediately made an impact. He won a total of 18 races in the four years before his breakthrough championship season, finishing second in points in two of those years.
His lone win of the Chase came at Martinsville in the Subway 500, but his consistency throughout enabled him to capture the Cup title with a ninth-place finish at Homestead.
Johnson, per McGee, ranked his first championship as the best of his career:
"I say it's first on this list because it was the first championship we won. I think about just seven, eight years before that, and to end up on the big stage in New York being handed the Sprint Cup trophy -- it's just surreal. I was a dirt rat. I was a kid from California with a blue-collar background and racing off-road trucks. I was not supposed to be a stock car racing champion. But for some reason, Jeff Gordon and [team owner] Rick Hendrick saw something in me that, honestly, I didn't see in me.
"
Maybe it shouldn’t have happened then, but it’s happened five more times since, and that’s no accident.
Johnson is just that good.
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