LONG POND, Pa. -- Denny Hamlin had the fastest last lap of any car in Sunday's Sunoco Red Cross 500 at Pocono Raceway -- faster than race winner Greg Biffle and runner-up Tony Stewart, who was coming-on maybe harder than anyone at the end.

But it was little consolation for Hamlin, who'd won the past two Pocono races and has four career wins here in only 10 starts.

“

We feel like this is a place we need to get 10 [bonus] points. You look at the next five or six races, we feel like if we don't win a couple of them, then we've taken a step back.

”

-- DENNY HAMLIN

This season Hamlin has five victories -- the same as four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson. But even though that currently gives Hamlin a neck-and-neck start with Johnson in the Chase, on Friday at Pocono he said he was feeling the pressure to increase his team's advantage.

"We feel like this is a place we need to get 10 [bonus] points," Hamlin said. "You look at the next five or six races, we feel like if we don't win a couple of them, then we've taken a step back."

Hamlin's crew chief, Mike Ford, brought a new car to Pocono, and pre-race indications were positive. Hamlin was second-best in opening practice and qualified third on Friday behind Stewart and flat-track ace Juan Montoya. Even though Hamlin was only 22nd and 14th in Saturday's two practices, his average speed in Happy Hour was second-best, to Johnson.

But in the end, Sunday's final 21-lap run left Hamlin without a good enough car to get back to the front -- though, given his last-lap speed you had to wonder if he just ran out of laps.

"We just fought it all weekend," Hamlin said. "Had speed for a couple laps, but other than that it was just hard to get a handle on. We drove back up there as good as anyone with those tires at the end, but track position was so important that we just couldn't overcome it. We didn't have a car that could overcome it like we had in the past."

Hamlin led only once, for 18 laps, and it took him 128 laps to get there.

"Our car was about that far off all day," Hamlin said. "We just couldn't get the handle on it and never really had a dominant car like we had in the past. It was a new car so we kind of have to work through things, but still, we came through the field as good as anyone I guess you could say. To get a top-five, I'm fortunate really that the race went the distance."

Strategy -- and the weather -- played havoc with crew chiefs' and drivers' plans as a caution with 35 laps remaining for a violent accident involving Johnson, Kurt Busch, Clint Bowyer and Elliott Sadler, brought out a 28:46 red flag that was followed by another 17:20 red for rain.

"We didn't want it to end in rain and that was a good thing that everyone made the effort to get this race completed," Hamlin said. "It's a good weekend, but obviously we're a little disappointed because we feel like we should win here."

Hindsight was best for Hamlin, who was 15th for the final restart after opting to take four tires. He made it to the top 10 with 17 laps remaining, but for the most part stalled-out and never got any higher than fifth.

"We just didn't have enough laps there," Hamlin said. "In the previous races where we came from mid-pack at the end, we had a few cautions to help. We just didn't have those cautions [Sunday] and truthfully, we didn't really have the race-winning car like we had here in the past. We fought this car all weekend, but it's a new car and sometimes it takes a little while to get the bugs out.

"It was just hard to get any track position. Track position, like Indy -- whoever got out front could really take off. Greg [Biffle] and those guys chose to take two [tires] and with no cautions, that's the right call. If there's cautions at the end that bottle the field back up, it might not be the best call. Things worked out kind of against our strategy there towards the end, but that's what happens."

After his top-five media session next to his car on pit road, Hamlin slowly walked back to his hauler with crew chief Mike Ford, and nothing distracted them as they discussed their car, and their day, which was a mixture of emotions.

"It is frustrating not to get a win at this place," Hamlin said. "But we definitely feel that we could have won here and it was a great opportunity -- but at this point we could win just about anywhere. We still have five more [places to win before the Chase cutoff, at Richmond]."

Ford forced a smile and a chuckle but was rightly offended when he was asked if there was any second guessing about bringing the new car -- or anything he would have done different on the weekend, or on Sunday.

"You can't, no -- hell, we got a top-five out of this and our last three [Pocono] races were two wins and a top-five," Ford said. "I mean, how greedy do you want to get? It was a good day.

"We weren't where we wanted to be, obviously, but to come out of it with a top-five, you can't expect anything [better] with this deal."

"It just didn't have the little things, the power that the cars usually have when we come here," Hamlin said. "Even when I would get stuck in second, third, fourth -- I usually was able to just kinda drive by those guys with a better handling car and [Sunday] we had about the fifth-best handing car and that's where we ended up."