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Johnson frustrated by fuel mileage

Jimmie Johnson was left frustrated by his poor fuel mileage after running out of gas on the last lap at Michigan, following a similar situation a week ago at Pocono

Johnson led the majority of the race at Michigan since he took the lead for the first time on lap nine.

He lost out to Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin on their last pitstop but despite recovering the lead with six laps remaining, he ran out of fuel as he was about to start the last lap.

The reigning champion said he probably burned too much fuel while trying to get back in the lead of the race despite having saved some as he was instructed on the early part of his final stint.

"Sounded like we were pretty good on fuel," said Johnson. "So I was a little shocked that we ran out and I did have to work the car really hard to get through traffic and catch Mark (Martin) and get by him and same with the sixteen.

"So through that I must have used more fuel than we thought we would have."

The Hendrick driver anticipates next weekend's road-course race at Sonoma
to eventually turn into a fuel-mileage event as well, following two weeks were races have not been won by the most dominant cars, instead by those who saved more fuel in the end.

The Californian says he prefers to look on the positives of Sunday's race, which left him only 22nd despite his dominance.

"I mean it's just fuel mileage you know and we know here and Sonoma and there is just a couple tracks where you have goofy stuff like that happen," Johnson added.

"We'll just have to take our lumps and go on and we really have to look at the bright side of things and how strong we were, how many laps we led and how fast we were and we'll be fine."

Johnson is currently third in the Sprint Cup series standings, 142 points behind leader Tony Stewart.

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