Chase drivers hope to close on Jimmie Johnson at Fontana

The playoff to win NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series championship boils down to the same question asked when the season started: Can anyone dethrone Jimmie Johnson?

It’s true that after three races in the 10-race playoff, NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup is the closest yet, with the top eight of the 12 Chase drivers within 85 points of one another.

But as stock-car racing’s top series holds its fourth Chase race, the Pepsi Max 400, on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Johnson again leads the standings in his quest to win an unprecedented fifth consecutive title.

That’s kept the pressure on other Chase drivers to show they can finally drive past Johnson to be the first Cup champion other than the El Cajon native since 2005, when Tony Stewart won his second series crown.

It won’t be easy. Johnson, 35, has won four of the last six races at Auto Club Speedway.

“You’ve got to prove you can beat them,” Matt Kenseth, the 2003 title winner who’s 11th in this year’s Chase, said of Johnson and the Hendrick Motorsports team that prepares Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet.

“I’ve said it for five years: They’re the best team out there and somebody has to beat them and knock them down before you can say they’re not the best team,” Kenseth said.

Already 149 points behind Johnson, Kenseth is a longshot to win his second championship, although Kenseth is a three-time winner at Fontana. Here’s a look at some other drivers in close striking distance:

Denny Hamlin

Hamlin won more races, six, than any of the Cup drivers in the first 26 races of the pre-Chase season, and he’s second in the Chase, only eight points behind Johnson.

But after finishing second in the opening Chase race at New Hampshire, the Virginian has slipped somewhat, finishing ninth at Dover and 12th at Kansas. He has never won at Auto Club Speedway.

Even so, “We feel like we can come to California and win,” said Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. “I come here to finish No. 1, nowhere else.”

Hamlin said the key to catching Johnson is mistake-free consistency. “If we get beat straight up because our performance isn’t good enough, we can swallow that a little bit better than if we go out there and make a mistake on our own,” Hamlin said.

Kevin Harvick

Harvick led the Cup point standings for much of the regular season and he’s third in the Chase, 30 points behind Johnson. But the Bakersfield native also has yet to win in Fontana.

Harvick, who drives the No. 29 Chevy for Richard Childress Racing, came close in the February race at Auto Club Speedway when he nearly ran down Johnson for the lead in the closing laps but brushed the wall and finished second.

Regardless, “I know that we’ve started the Chase better than we’ve started the Chase before,” Harvick said. “I feel really good about the situation that we’re in.”

Carl Edwards

Edwards is fourth in the Chase, 53 points behind Johnson, even though Edwards has gone 65 races without a win.

But he has been fairly consistent with 16 top-10 finishes this season. He also has taken his No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford to Victory Lane at Fontana, winning the rain-delayed February race in 2008.

Edwards, who starts 20th in Sunday’s race, said: “Our team has been marching toward this points lead just little bits at a time, and I think this track is an opportunity for us to do that again.”

Jeff Gordon

Still seeking a fifth Cup championship himself, Gordon has his own 58-race winless streak but is fifth in the Chase and he trails Johnson, his teammate, by 58 points.

Gordon, 39, time and again has appeared poised to win this season only to come up short. At Kansas last week, for instance, he led 29 laps before finishing fifth.

“Each year you think, oh man, I think we have a shot at seeing a different champion this year” than Johnson, Gordon said. “Then those guys start backing it up right away with solid finishes.”

That said, Gordon said Johnson can be caught. “Everybody in the top six or eight right now feels like they still have a shot at it,” Gordon said.

james.peltz@latimes.com