NASCAR Review: Alex Bowman Not Happy Despite Best Hendrick Result at Talladega

With five top-10 finishes in the first 10 races of the season, Alex Bowman has had a pretty good start in 2024. Sunday’s race at the Talladega Superspeedway saw him edge past his Hendrick Motorsports teammates to finish in 5th place. Despite the positive result, he wasn’t completely satisfied with the performance.

Talking to the press in the aftermath of the race, he said that he didn’t have an “amazing” race owing to the lack of openings. “There was so much riding around saving fuel,” he said as reported by NBC Sports. “And then when we finally all would go run around wide-open, there weren’t really many moves to make, and we were buried and stuck on the bottom. We just never had a hole to get up or do anything.”

Notably, this is the 4th top five finish for Bowman this season and his 2nd on a drafting-style track. He said of it, “That’s great – obviously, that’s great for the team. It wasn’t our best speedway race, but still a solid top-five.”  The result came after Bowman expertly navigated throught a multi-car wreck in the final lap to keep his chances at finishing alive.

Where Alex Bowman’s teammates finished at Talladega on Sunday

Driving the iconic #24 car, William Byron finished in 7th place. It was his 7th top-10 of the season. He drove inside the top-10 through the day and escaped the final lap chaos, same as Bowman, to secure his result. He said, “Today was just a lot of strategy. My No. 24 Liberty University Chevy team did a really good job getting us out front for the stage finishes to give us a shot at the stage wins. Happy to come home with a seventh-place finish.”

The Texas winner Chase Elliott finished his day in 15th place. He narrowly missed out on a stage win by finishing 2nd in Stage 1 and 8th in Stage 2. The final lap incident caused him to fall down spots and settle for 15th place. Kyle Larson had an eventful day driving the #5 Chevy Camaro as well.

After serving a drive-through penalty at the start of the race, he rejoined the field and raced without being concerned about fuel. He earned the free-pass position ahead of the start of Stage 2 and drove up to 3rd place by stage end. Flying towards the checkered flag, he spun through the grass after contact but was still able to salvage a 21st-place result.