How Jimmie Johnson became ‘Seven-Time’

Jimmie Johnson won his record-tying seventh championship on Nov. 20, 2016 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. A seventh championship matched the mark of legends and NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. How did Johnson get to seven? Let's recap every title.

2006: Johnson scored his first championship. The Hendrick Motorsports driver earned the first title for the organization since what would end up being Jeff Gordon's fourth and final title in 2001.

Turning point: Johnson led nearly half the laps at Martinsville to score the win. The victory was part of a five-race stretch in which Johnson finished first (once) or second (four times). That run of races took him from eighth in points to first.

2007: For title No. 2, Johnson was unstoppable in the same stretch that propelled him to his first title. This marked the 12th time in NASCAR premier series history that a champion successfully defended his title in the following season.

Turning point: After a 14th-place finish at Charlotte left Johnson in second place in the points with five races to go, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet simply went to another level. Johnson rolled off four straight wins (Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas and Phoenix) to take control of the championship race for good.

2008: A third straight title put Johnson in rare company as one of two drivers -- Cale Yarborough is the other -- to win three in a row. Unlike his previous two titles, Johnson grabbed the reins on this title run pretty much from the get-go.

Turning point: Johnson's race win at Kansas from the pole position -- the third race of the playoffs -- gave him the points lead for good. He drove away with the title thanks to convincing victories from the pole position at Martinsville (leading 339 of 504 laps) and Phoenix (leading 217 of 313 laps).

2009: For much of the season, Johnson's biggest competition came from within the Hendrick stable with Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon posing big challenges, but in the end, JJ was too much to handle for them as he became the first driver to win four straight titles.

Turning point: Back-to-back wins at Auto Club and Charlotte gave Johnson the title lead for good. And after a rare hiccup at Texas (a 38th-place finish), Johnson rebounded with a strong Phoenix victory (238 of 312 laps led) to salt away the title.

2010: After a 25th-place finish to open the playoffs, Johnson used consistency to rally back for his fifth straight title. Johnson rolled off nine straight top 10s, including a win at Dover and a runner-up finish at Homestead to catch Denny Hamlin for the title.

Turning point: Johnson and Hamlin went back and forth for much of the postseason and the Joe Gibbs Racing driver held a 15-point lead coming into the finale. Johnson would nab a runner-up finish, while Hamlin struggled from a 37th-place starting position to a 14th-place finish. That allowed Johnson to win the title by 39 points.

2013: Johnson and Matt Kenseth were the two championship favorites coming into the playoffs and it played out that way. Again, Johnson used consistency -- two wins, nine top 10s and no finish worse than 13th.

Turning point: Kenseth held the points lead through the first half of the playoffs, but Johnson took the lead for good after Talladega -- his lone finish outside the top 10 in the postseason. A victory at Texas (leading 255 of 334 laps) along with his third-place finish at Phoenix the following week -- and some misfortune for Kenseth -- helped ice his sixth championship.

2016: Johnson came into the playoffs as a bit of an underdog, having not won since March and in a bit of a slump. The 48 team came alive with good runs at Chicago and Dover, before wins at Charlotte and Martinsville to advance into the Round of 8 and Championship 4, respectively.

Turning point: Johnson had been running fourth among the Championship 4 for much of the finale at Miami. A late surge had him up to second for the final restart, which Johnson executed perfectly to take the lead for good and win the title over Joey Logano.