'I do not have a job for next year' – Kenseth

Matt Kenseth admitted Friday that his five-year tenure at Joe Gibbs Racing is likely over after this season.

"I'm not really worried about it, but as of today I do not have a job for next year, so I certainly hope to still be racing," Kenseth, 45, said before Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Kentucky Speedway. "I think I've got some wins left in me and hopefully can race for championships but right now my focus is on finishing up this year.

"I haven't really worked on anything real hard, but I do not think I will have the option to race at JGR next year, unfortunately."

The 2003 Cup champion and two-time Daytona 500 winner is 11th in points, but he said his six top-10s and lack of a win – his last victory came at Loudon in September – aren't good enough.

"It's been a slow start. It has not been a good year at all, not nearly up to my standards or my team's standards," he said. "I'm really trying to get back to Victory Lane, hopefully get qualified for the playoffs here and have a shot at a championship is pretty much my focus at this point."

Kenseth's likely replacement in the No. 20 Toyota Camry would be Erik Jones, who drives for JGR in the Xfinity Series and is racing with Furniture Row in the Cup series on a one-year deal. The 21-year-old, who sits 17th in points with one top-five finish, kept his response simple.

"I'm just driving," Jones said. "For the most part, for me, I don't know where I'm going to be yet. They haven't let me know.

"So for me, I've been really happy at Furniture Row, and I've built a steady group of guys over there that I think work really well together. So don't yet. Hopefully I know soon. It's kind of getting down to that point. I guess it's July now, so I'm sure we'll have an answer here soon."

Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole is winless so far this year in the Cup series, noticeably sluggish to start the season and behind in terms of speed. It's a far cry from a year ago, when Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch won seven of the first 12 races.

"[2015] was really strong [for the 20 car], 2016 was pretty strong and this year we seem to be off a little bit," he said. "We do seem to be running much better lately; we've had a hard time turning those good runs, better runs into finishes a lot, unfortunately, but I feel like we're on the upswing. Kyle's been fast enough to win three or four races if all the circumstances would have went right. We've had one or two where I thought we were competitive enough under the right circumstances without mistakes or problems where maybe we could have won. So I feel like we're getting closer to that, just have to get things go our way a little bit."