Alex Bowman heads into Daytona on Saturday carrying a 10.4 average finish at the track since 2022. Sitting on the provisional playoff bubble, Bowman and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team have one last shot at the postseason. He holds a 60-point cushion over Chris Buescher, one of the drivers still in mathematical contention to qualify on points.
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Besides that, Bowman trails Tyler Reddick by 29 points, meaning a ninth-place finish or better locks Reddick in regardless of Bowman’s result. If no new winner emerges, both advance, but should a fresh face take the checkered flag, only one will move on.
The pressure is squarely on Bowman, the only Hendrick Motorsports driver without a win this year. Only once in his tenure with the team, in 2023, has he missed the playoffs. A spring injury, after leading the standings early, had sidelined him for three weeks and left him in a must-win situation he and the team couldn’t capitalize on.
But fully aware of the current situation he is in, Bowman said, “Yeah, I feel like we should have won by now, and we’ve been close. Homestead, we were close. Richmond, we were close. I think we had a car very capable of winning Texas if we didn’t crash, which was totally out of our control. Kansas, we were capable of winning before we got damaged.
“So, we’ve had plenty of races that we’ve had winning cars. But unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out for us this season. We haven’t had that perfect day yet.”
Alex Bowman has been going through a full slate of obligations already this week, and it’ll continue into tomorrow. So he hasn’t yet had much time to think about being on the bubble for Daytona. But that’s a good thing.
“I am incredibly stressed out.”https://t.co/X9mjsjdgjt
— Kelly Crandall (@KellyCrandall) August 20, 2025
Bowman acknowledged that at Daytona, things might be a lot out of his control. Still, he believes that if they maximize their effort, execute cleanly, and avoid mistakes, they will give themselves a fighting chance.
Confident in his superspeedway ability and his team’s capacity to outscore Reddick, Bowman is ready to do everything in his power to win and rack up the maximum points possible to punch his ticket to the playoffs.
