Alex Bowman and the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 team entered the Round of 16 elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway under intense pressure, knowing that a strong performance was critical to move forward in the playoffs. With the postseason already shaped by setbacks, the Alex Bowman Bristol Playoffs situation demanded a near-perfect effort to secure advancement.
Bowman’s playoff journey started poorly with a disastrous 40-second pit stop at Darlington Raceway, followed by a performance-drop due to poor handling that relegated him to 31st place. The struggles continued at the World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, where Bowman finished 26th after another slow pit stop. In response, Hendrick Motorsports made a significant change at Bristol, replacing almost the entire No. 48 pit crew with Hendrick’s developmental crew from Spire Motorsports, keeping only fueler Jacob Conley in the original lineup.
Race Day at Bristol: A Battle Marked by Tire Wear and Strategic Moves
Throughout the demanding 500-lap event at Bristol, Bowman faced several hurdles, including going a lap down during Stage 1. Contact with Riley Herbst on lap 100 caused Bowman to spin, which brought out a caution. Despite the early setback, Bowman steadily climbed the scoring chart, demonstrating resilience and speed amid the intense competition. He finished third in the second stage, trailing only Ty Gibbs and Ryan Blaney, who each won one of the first two stages.
With the race nearing its conclusion, Blake Harris, crew chief of the No. 48 car, made a critical decision to pit Bowman with 28 laps remaining while he held the runner-up position. Bowman managed to regain two laps on race leader Brad Keselowski and chose to stay on the track during a late caution with 12 laps left. On the final restart, Bowman lined up on the outside of the second row, behind front-row starters Hocevar and Zane Smith.
The restart saw the leaders, Hocevar and Smith, drift up the track and make contact, and a slight push from Brad Keselowski moved Bowman higher into the groove. Unfortunately, Bowman’s position dropped to eighth place by race end, leaving him 10 points shy of moving on to the Round of 12.
Reflections on the Race: Bowman Acknowledges Team Effort Despite Disappointment
Speaking about the race outcome, Bowman told NBC Sports,
“I don’t think you can really point at something that cost us,”
admitting the challenges with tire wear but maintaining that the team did what they could by staying out on the track.
He also praised his crew’s effort throughout the day:
“Hats off to our whole Ally 48 team. They did a good job throughout the course of the day and trying to be better after a rough last two weeks, and I think we swung it the right direction, and we can continue to do that for the next seven weeks. We’ve just got to keep digging. Certainly sucks to not transfer, but our back was against the wall coming in here. We knew it was going to be a tough thing to do.”
Bowman’s elimination marks him as the only Hendrick Motorsports driver to miss advancing to the Round of 12. He reflected on the struggles of the early playoff races, which were unexpected given his history at certain tracks. Bowman had previously earned top-10 finishes in eight consecutive Darlington events leading into the Southern 500. However, the shorter, flatter tracks, similar to Gateway, have traditionally been a challenge for the No. 48 team, with an average finish of 23.3 over four starts at St. Louis.
Season Performance and Outlook for Bowman and Hendrick Motorsports
Before the playoff elimination, the No. 48 team experienced a tumultuous season, scoring seven top-10 finishes and four top-five results in the final 11 regular-season races. This included a runner-up finish to Austin Dillon last month at Richmond Raceway. Even so, Bowman was candid about recent team performance issues:
“We’re a plenty capable race team a lot of the time, and just the last two weeks we’ve just not been very good,”
highlighting the unexpected downturn at certain tracks.
He also noted the gap in performance at Bristol, saying,
“Even coming [to Bristol], we were typically a good bit better than we were tonight and yesterday when we come here. We have some work to do on our race cars, but everybody is always working, getting better, and tires change and the field changes. I think this summer we were so fast every week that I’m a little surprised to be down on speed, but the guys work really hard, and we’ll keep digging on it.”
Despite the recent setbacks, Bowman’s record includes success at two of the remaining seven tracks on the 2025 schedule, underscoring his potential to rebound as the playoffs progress.
