©  Scott McNair

Jeff Gordon battled an ill-handling race car much of the day at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday but held on for a top ten finish after starting third.  Gordon brought the No. 24 DuPont Chevy Impala home for a 10th place finish, only to lose more ground to HMS teammate Jimmie Johnson in the points.  Johnson now leads Gordon by 86 with only one race remaining to determine who will be crowned the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion.

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Dupont Impala SS - Finished 10th
10TH PLACE TODAY WAS NOT WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR AT THE START. TELL US ABOUT YOUR RACE:
"Unless you lead every lap and beat Jimmie Johnson and win the race, you don't have a shot at it. Man, I'll tell you those guys are on an unbelievable roll. Whatever they've got we're missing; we know everything they've got, but man we're just not hitting on it. And it's unfortunate. I thought this was our year to get another one (championship) but we're just coming up short here at the crucial time. Those guys have just knocked it out of the ballpark. It's going to be tough to beat that if we were hitting on all eight cylinders. Another top 10, but still just not a good enough day to get it done."

YOU HAD SOME CONTACT WITH KEVIN HARVICK LATE IN THE RACE BEFORE THE FINAL PIT STOP. HOW MUCH DID THAT AFFECT YOUR CAR?
"It didn't affect it. It's no big deal, Kevin and I. You can't touch Kevin Harvick because if you touch him he's got a short fuse. He gets pretty upset. He rubbed on me because I was racing him too hard, I guess. I didn't like it either. So I rubbed back on him and I thought we were going to all wreck. So it is what it is. That didn't affect us in any way about where we finished today. We were going backyards at that time anyway and just weren't getting a handle on it. We took four tires hoping that would pay off for us, but traffic was just so horrendous and track position and all that, we just couldn't get up there."

IT LOOKS LIKE IT IS 86 POINTS GOING DOWN TO SOUTH FLORIDA:
"It's over. Even if we win it, it's because they had problems. And while we'll accept it (laughs), we don't want to do it that way. And those guys have flat-out killed everybody. You've got to give credit where credit's due. Those guys deserve a lot of credit. We didn't step up and win the races when we needed to. We gave them a run for a while and now we've got to figure out how to get the best finish we can at Homestead and end this season off on a positive note going into the off-season.

IT SEEMED LIKE YOUR CAR WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT AS GOOD AS YOUR CAR AND YET YOU SHARE ALL THIS INFORMATION BUT YOU DRIVE DIFFERENTLY. WERE YOU ABLE TO CAPITALIZE ON ANYTHING JOHNSON HAD THIS WEEKEND?
"That's obvious that we didn't (laughs). We share information every weekend and one of us is going to win and one of us isn't. Sometimes it works together. Just because we're sharing information doesn't mean that we're going to run exactly the same. We do drive different enough and I know what's under their car and I always shake my head. I don't see how they make that work. But Jimmie's driving style is just different enough that it does and they are just flat-out stomping not just us, but everybody right now. I'm just bummed out that we're not getting it done the way I know I'm capable of."

BESIDES HARVICK, DID YOU FEEL LIKE THERE WAS A LACK OF RESPECT BY SOME OF THE GUYS OUT THERE TODAY?
"No, the whole deal is this. Lapped traffic is so tough here. With this car, you saw me, I had four tires and I couldn't pass guys. It's just a product of this track, this car, and in lapped traffic. And so you get frustrated because you know your car is better that where you're at and you're trying to pick a lane. When me and Montoya got together it was because I chose the inside lane and they all stopped in front of me and he went to the outside and I tried to get there before he got there and I got into him. And with Harvick, I just got held up in some lapped traffic allowed him to get up on me and when he got up on me he got me real loose. I raced him hard. He got frustrated and moved up into me on the front straightaway and I repaid the favor and he got all ticked off about it."

YOU LOST A LOT OF GROUND ON YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP TODAY. YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE RUN:
Well, heck, unless you're going to lead the most laps and win the race, you're not going to make up any ground on those guys (laughs). I mean they're doing an awesome job and we just haven't been able to get the job done the way we need to. Heck, right now, even if we finish second we're not good enough. I'm more disappointed that we just missed the handling again. We were so strong here the last time I really thought we were going to be good like that again. We just weren't. All day we struggled with it. And then to see your teammate go out there and stomp them like that, it makes it even that much more frustrating from a speed standpoint. But they're doing the job to win the championship and we haven't. So, I thought it was our year, I really did. But the way things have been going here lately I just don't think it is."

TALK ABOUT THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF THE NO. 48
"You know what? When you're car is working right you can do a lot of amazing things. His car looked like it was working pretty good for whatever reason ours wasn't. I was terrible in lapped traffic. That's probably why he was going three-wide. Lapped traffic was very difficult to deal with. And sometimes you have to take some big risks and I played it a little bit too conservative at times and then once the newness of the tires went away, I just couldn't pass anybody. We were probably about a sixth or seventh place car all day and we took four tires thinking that would pay off and we got so far back in traffic it just didn't."

IS JIMMIE ALMOST LIKE TOM BRADY? HE HAS JUST WRACKED UP INCREDIBLE NUMBERS IN THE CHASE FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS"
"He's wracked up incredible numbers since he's been in the series. To me, it's always a combination of a great driver and a great team. When you get those two ingredients, and sometimes it seems like it's easy to find, but trust me, it's not. When you find that, man, I tell you what, you just think that this stuff is easy. And they're making it look real easy. It's so difficult to find that combination. But they do have it and that's why they are winning four and five races in a row."

WAS YOUR CAR JUST STILL TOO LOOSE NO MATTER WHAT CHANGES YOU MADE?
"Yeah, you know what? This car is impossible to adjust once you get it off. There is no adjustment in it. And so we're pretty limited on what we could do. It seemed like everything we did to it just made it worse."

ON BEING 86 POINTS BACK?
"It's over. I think it's over. Even if they have trouble and we still win it and we accept the check and the trophy, it's not the way you want to win a championship. We've gotten beat. Bottom line. They've done the job to deserve to be champions and we haven't. It's unfortunate and right now I'm just more frustrated with the way we've been running when we've run so well all year long and we got ourselves in a great position and it just hasn't worked out for us. You go into it trying to figure out if it's your year and if you've got what it takes and I really thought we did. It's just not meant to be for us this year."

IT WOULD BE EASY TO LOSE PATIENCE AND OVERDRIVE THE CAR:
"You can't do that. What's that going to do? That's just going to lose you more points and more positions. The harder you drive this car, the slower you go. So, I tried everything (laughs) but it didn't work."

WHEN THAT CAUTION CAME OUT, WERE YOU CLOSE TO HAVING TO PIT?
"No. It was a tire rub that lasted a short period of time. Once we ran a few laps it just knocked the fender back down and it was fine."

WHAT DO YOU TELL THE TEAM WHEN YOU SAY IT'S OVER?
"Well, we've got to go to Homestead and try to end this season with our heads held up high and do something to take us into the off-season. We've gotten beat, bottom line. And so obviously we've got to find a way to get the performance up if we're going to compete with these guys in the future. I really thought the average finish that we had would do it and it hasn't because they've just been that spectacular. So, to me, right now it's not about the championship. It's about the off-season and next year and getting ourselves where we need to be."

DO YOU HAVE TO CHANGE?
"I guess I've got to change. I don't know. We'll figure it out. We've got to figure out how to go faster, I know that, because what I'm doing now ain't getting it done."

WHAT IS SO DIFFERENT ABOUT THE WAY JIMMIE DRIVES AND THE WAY YOU DRIVE
"He just uses the brakes a lot different getting into the corner, and when and how he gets on the throttle. They set the car up much different. Every time he's blistering fast, and I just say, 'Put that set-up in', we're absolutely terrible. So, we have to find those ingredients that work for me and hey, maybe this is as good as it gets for us. It's hard to say."