CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jimmie Johnson views himself as a patience person.

But the seven-time NASCAR Series Cup champion said he's growing more and more impatient with each passing week as his Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 race team keeps struggling on the race track.

“Over my career, I've been able to be patient and let things work themselves out,” Johnson said this week. “There are two factors that are leading to my impatience now — one is I haven't won in a couple years; two is that I don't know what I'm going to be doing in a couple years.”

Johnson's contract is up in 2020.

“I'll have to evaluate what I'll want to do after that,” he said.

The 43-year-old Johnson hasn't won a Cup Series race since reaching victory lane at Dover International Speedway on June 4, 2017.

He enters this weekend's NASCAR All-Star race at Charlotte Motor Speedway a disappointing 16th in the points standings with only one top-five finish, meaning the chances of him winning the exhibition race for a fifth time appear pretty bleak.

That hasn't changed since last season when he had two top-five finishes in 36 starts.

Johnson fully understands that if he wants to capture an eighth Cup championship he needs to find a way to win a race soon — or at least get into the mix.

“We haven't been in contention to win a race yet this year,” said Johnson. “We've got to fix that. If I'm not in contention to win a race, there's no chance of winning a championship. For me right now, this middle portion of the season is the key for me to get things where they need to be so we can ultimately win races and win a championship.”

Perhaps compounding the frustration is Johnson's teammates Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman are off to solid starts with seven top-five finishes and one win between them.

With the pressure to win mounting, Johnson's team is using the non-points All-Star race as a chance to experiment with different setups on the racecar.

“We have great flexibility at Hendrick to change cars and build cars in different ways,” Johnson said. “At times we've found ourselves very close together. I think there are some areas where our cars are closer together than they've ever been, especially from a body standpoint.”

But the No. 48 team hasn't hit on the right package for his Chevrolet Camaro, even though all of the team's drivers have access to all the same components.