Burton: engine failure no excuse

Burton plunged five spots to ninth in the standings as a result of the retirement, and is now in danger of dropping out of the Chase placings altogether with three races to go before the cut-off.

Burton has yet to win this season, but has shown consistently strong pace with four pole positions, including at Michigan last weekend.

"The guys have done a great job this season and our reliability has been incredible," Burton said. "But here the day got us. I think it gets everybody all the time and today was our turn. We have three races to get our business done and we're going to go get it done.

"This is nobody's fault. We're all in this together. We've got great race cars. We break engines. We mess up from time to time. We'll just keep fighting and we'll come back and try to win some races.

"I'm not down at all. We've had some great fortune and our engine program has been extremely reliable and today it wasn't. But that's no excuse for not getting our business done in the next three weeks.

"As I've said all along, I don't think we have a points cushion. I don't think anybody has a cushion. We have to keep fighting and bring it to the race track every week."