MARTINSVILLE -- The Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 started out well for Jeff Gordon at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.

Gordon started on the pole and led 141 of the first 155 laps.

But on lap 156, things went a little downhill.

Denny Hamlin took the lead on that lap and would maintain it for majority of the rest of the race.

Gordon challenged again, regaining the lead on lap 343 but faded back to finish fourth and extended his winless streak to 47 races.

"Me and Jimmie [Johnson] got to racing and he was in a hurry to get to the front and I came up on some lap cars and didn't clear them as quick as I wanted to," Gordon said. "Once he got underneath me, it pushed me to the outside and I wasn't very good on the outside and then a train of [cars] came.

"We're better than that but that was pretty much the end of our race at [that] point."

Gordon hasn't won since the Bank of America 500 on Oct. 13, 2007 at Charlotte.

But his sights are set higher than just one win.

"It's another good run for us ... but we'll take another top-5," he said. "If we're going to contend for the championship, especially in those final 10 races, we got to start winning races.

"I'm not really concerned with this streak of how many wins we haven't had in a row. I'm more concerned with what we have to do this year to win some races and win this championship."

So far, he's in good condition, currently sitting first in the standings after Sunday's race with 959 points, 89 ahead of second-place Clint Bowyer.

Gordon has plenty of time left to get back to his winning ways, starting next week at Texas Motor Speedway in the Samsung 500.

Gordon said he was looking forward to racing on a larger track but wasn't focused on anything other than the race that had just transpired.

"I am actually looking forward to going to Texas and see how good this stuff that we have been running at the other mile-and-a-halves that has worked so well that we almost won with and see what we can do at Texas," he said. "I'm not concerned about Texas.

"I'm a little more concerned about [the] fact that we didn't run better here today at Martinsville."

And Gordon, who has 81 career Cup series wins, seemed pretty confident that he and his team could pull out a few checkered flags this year.

"I know that we are capable of winning," he said. "We have a team capable of it.

"I just thought we were going to do a lot better than we [did] today."