Four-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson has slumped to fifth in the point standings and said Tuesday that he is not comfortable “sliding down in the points any further than I am right now.”

With five wins this season and four races remaining before the Chase For The Sprint Cup gets under way, the Hendrick Motorsports driver doesn’t have to worry about qualifying for the 10-race playoff. And once the points are reset and the Chase begins, he will be at or near the top of the standings again, with his five wins translating into 50 bonus points.

It’s how his No. 48 team will perform in the Chase that concerns Johnson. He admits to a certain amount of concern over his recent finishes, but it’s a path he’s been down before. Three years ago, he was seventh in the point standings after 22 races, but went on to win six of the final 12 races to collect his second Cup title.

His 28th-place finish at Watkins Glen on Sunday was Johnson’s fourth finish outside the top 20 in his last five starts. His average finishing position through those events is 23rd.

Those struggles could continue this weekend at Michigan, one of just four current tracks where Johnson has never won. In 17 career starts at Michigan, Johnson has just two top-five and seven top-10 finishes. He finished sixth there in June.

Those finishes are part of the story, but not the entire one. Johnson led laps in four of the five races, including the most laps at Pocono Raceway. He was off and running at Chicago until trouble hit. He raced his way back into the top 10 after a flat tire at Watkins Glen, only to get caught up in a wreck.

“We hate to see it happen, especially this close to the Chase,” Johnson said of his lackluster results of late. “Races like Chicago, where we led so much early and then we faded, are disturbing to us, although the trip through the grass on the back straightaway [damaged] the car and we see why we slipped after that.

“We try to pinpoint things back. We’ve seen different mistakes happen and issues with the car that explain some of it, and then there are other cases where our performance just fell off over the course of the race.”

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Fading late in races is what concerns Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus most, although some of those disappointing performances have come at tracks not in the Chase.

“It’s weird because you look at that and say, ‘That track is not in the Chase and how have we done at Chase tracks.’ We’ve done well at Chase tracks this year,” he said. “The schedule … and how the Chase works, you find one area where you’re disappointed and you think, ‘Man, we really need to get our act together.’ Then you look at other things and say, ‘Well, it’s really not all that bad.’

“We’re optimistic. We know we need to be finishing better than we are right now, but again the Chase isn’t here yet and we’ve been in this position before late in the regular season. … For whatever reason, when the Chase comes around we typically get our act together and perform. I’m really hoping for that again.”

While the team has been working a little more outside the box in recent weeks, Johnson said it’s no different than how the team approached this part of the season in years past. That he’s won four consecutive championships is proof enough that their system works.

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“I wouldn’t say it’s just been blind experimenting,” he said. “In 2005, we felt like our standard package was really strong and we could go off into left field and try some things. This year, it’s been more of the evolution of the [new] car. We’re seeing teams that have picked up a lot of speed and the areas that we were working in last year, there’s nothing left there.

“They aren’t producing what we need to beat those [Earnhardt] Ganassi cars right now and some of the Roush [Fenway] guys are coming back, [Richard] Childress cars have been really strong.

“So we recognize that we have some work to do.”

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