It’s now officially time to ask what’s wrong with Jimmie Johnson

The seven-time champion may yet show signs of his old form, but he’s struggling right now.

The problem with questioning one of the very best to ever do it is that they can rise up and make you look foolish at any time. In the case of Jimmie Johnson, all of his NASCAR Cup Series titles mean that everyone was willing to hand-wave his 2017 second-half slump as something that would pass in time. His accomplishments more than earned him the benefit of the doubt.

There’s still a lot of the 2018 NASCAR season to go, and Johnson didn’t exactly sprint out of the blocks in 2017, managing just one top-10 finish in the first six races. He then promptly visited Victory Lane back to back at Texas and Bristol before adding another victory five weeks later at Dover. Three victories in 13 races — in other words, typical Jimmie Johnson stuff.

It’s what he hasn’t done since then that’s worth discussing. Johnson didn’t win again in 2017 after the first weekend of June. He managed three top-10 finishes in the first four playoff races but none after that, and he wasn’t part of the Championship 4 or even the Round of 8.

His bad Speedweeks could be written off, because Johnson has had bad runs at Daytona before. But his performance during the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 was much more worrisome, as it was much more uncharacteristic. There was the 48 spinning out with no one else around. Later, Johnson got lapped before ultimately finishing 27th in a race he had won two of the last three years.

As the Fox Sports announce team reminded us on Sunday, Johnson’s winless streak is now at 25 races, the longest of his hall of fame career. If he fails to win before the checkered flag flies at the Coca-Cola 600, it will be the equivalent of one entire NASCAR Cup Series season with no trips to Victory Lane, an almost unthinkable drought for Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus.

With that in mind, it’s absolutely fair to ask what’s wrong and how the 48 team can get its driver his mojo back. Here are a few guesses.

The Chevy Camaro ZL1 has been more curse than blessing so far

Given what the Toyota drivers were able to accomplish with the new Camry last season, the assumption was that the new Camaro would prove the same kind of boon for Chevy drivers. In other words, it was easy to see already competitive drivers like Kyle Larson would be even more formidable, and anyone floundering like Johnson would find it exactly what they needed to right the ship.

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It may yet prove to be all of that, but it’s also a new variable thrown into the equation that Knaus and other crew chiefs need to solve. When you’re already searching for answers, maybe the last thing you need is another unknown on top of everything else. That’s even more likely when you consider our next theory …

Johnson is being bogged down by a wider Hendrick Motorsports downturn

It’s probably not going to make Johnson and Knaus feel any better, but it’s not like any of their Hendrick teammates are faring much better. William Byron has looked every bit the Cup Series rookie in his first two races, and Alex Bowman has been an 11-20 type instead of someone challenging for wins. Chase Elliott had trouble at Daytona and then had to scramble for a top-10 finish at Atlanta, and as Kyle Busch helpfully pointed out earlier this year, he’s yet to win a single race in the top circuit.

So it’s not just the 48 bunch who are off by a step. Nothing is really going 100 percent correctly for one of NASCAR’s most prominent teams, and that might be enough to even drag a seven-time champion into the mire.

Next: Jeff Gordon sounds like he really wants to race again

No one would be shocked if Johnson won on the NASCAR Goes West swing or at one of the places he was victorious last season. Dover is a month earlier this year, and he’s always been dominant there. For the first time, though, it’s possible to see his winless streak stretching into this summer, with no real answers in sight. If that happens, expect the whispers about what might be amiss to grow into full-throated debate, something that we never would have expected even 12 months ago.