INDIANAPOLIS -- Juan Pablo Montoya says his runner-up finish is encouraging but he knows he faces challenges in the coming weeks.

Montoya scored his best NASCAR finish on an oval Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"I think we're getting there," said Montoya, who won last month's road race at Infineon Raceway. "It shows where the team is going. It shows that the potential is there. But it's a little bit like my season. We're going to go to places where we're going to still [stink] and we're going to have places where we're going to do really well."

Montoya moved to 18th in the season standings and is 200 points out of the last spot for the Chase with six races left. He admits he's a long shot to make the Chase.

"If you could get this kind of finish the next two races, then you have a chance," he said.

Almost

Jeff Gordon rallied to finish third after starting 21st, but he wondered if it might have been better.

"I wish our qualifying effort here would be better," said Gordon, who extended his lead on second-place Denny Hamlin to 371 points. "We've stunk here in qualifying the last several races, and I don't know where we're missing out.

"The one thing I'm excited about is we've got a very strong consistent team and we don't have a crew chief right now. I think when Steve [Letarte] comes back, it's only going to ... make us stronger."

Letarte has two more races left on his six-race suspension for a rules violation.

Tough day

Defending race winner Jimmie Johnson's car went up in flames on lap 60 after a tire blew and he slammed into the turn 3 wall. The contact started a small fire.

"The flames had me nervous there inside the car, and I lost some eyelashes and the side of my face got pretty hot," Johnson said.

He finished 39th. It's the fourth time he's failed to finish a race this season. He failed to finish only one race last year en route to winning the title.

Tough day II

Denny Hamlin again suffered pit road woes. It was a problem early in the season that seemed to have settled until Sunday.

NASCAR penalized him for speeding on pit road early in the race. Later, he ran out of fuel coming down pit road for his last stop. He couldn't re-fire his engine and lost a lap trying to do so. In the top 10 before the stop, he finished 22nd.

"We just can't keep doing stuff like this and it's not all on [crew chief] Mike [Ford] and those guys," Hamlin said of his crew.

"For some reason we just didn't pick up the fuel that we had in months past. We preach about being more aggressive but we didn't need to stretch it right there."

Bad bump

Ryan Newman said a tap from David Stremme ruined his race. Newman crashed on lap 21 and finished 42nd.

"I just got hit in the left rear quarter panel," Newman said. "Stremme tried sticking it underneath me when he shouldn't have and spun us around."

Newman is trying to get into the top 12 and make the Chase.

His only consolation is that Dale Earnhardt Jr., who holds the final transfer spot to the Chase, blew a motor and finished 34th.

Newman's woes dropped him to 14th in the points. Teammate Kurt Busch moved to 13th and trails Earnhardt by 13 points. Newman is 59 points behind Earnhardt.

Moving up

Dave Blaney's ninth-place finish helped him score enough points to push his team past the Wood Brothers for 35th in the car owner standings. That's the last spot that is guaranteed a starting position, so the Bill Davis Racing team won't have to worry about qualifying on speed next week at Pocono.

Pit stops

Kyle Busch said he apologized to his teammates and his crew chief this weekend for critical comments he made two weeks ago about them. ...

Sunday's crowd was estimated at 225,000. While it's the largest crowd of the season, many large gaps could be seen in the stands. ...

Next year's race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is scheduled for July 27, track officials announced.