BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Jimmie Johnson is treating Charlotte as a must-win race.

The alternative for the six-time Sprint Cup Series champion is leaving it all up to the chaotic, utterly unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway where a driver’s fate can careen out of his hands in an instant.

“I’m not in the position I want to be in,” Johnson, who won the title last year, said Wednesday during a promotional appearance at UAB. “I hate not being in control of my own destiny. The race in Kansas went about as bad as it could. We need to turn things around in Charlotte so we don’t show up to our most treacherous racetrack needing a win.”

Johnson is last in the 12-driver field, with four getting knocked out after next weekend’s Talladega race. The only way to control his own fate is to pick up his second straight win at Charlotte, securing himself an automatic berth into the next round. Joey Logano claimed a spot by winning at Kansas where Johnson didn’t help his own case.

He was involved in an early accident and finished 40th, his worst Chase finish since the 2005 finale.

“The first part of the week, we struggled with qualifying,” Johnson said. “Everything on Saturday in race trim, we did much better with the race car, had a competitive car. It was just mired in traffic and on that one restart the 16 car (Greg Biffle) just came up and hit me and spun me around. The 11 car (Denny Hamlin) and I were dancing and I think he finished somewhere in the Top 10, near the Top 5, and I think we could have ended up right there with them but we just got crashed before we had a chance to get there.”

Hamlin finished seventh.

There are worse tracks for Johnson to head to in such a precarious position than Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he won for a record seventh time in May’s Coca-Cola 600.