While his Hendrick Motorsports teammates grab the headlines for a multitude of reasons, Alex Bowman has been steadily gaining form in 2024. The #48 driver, who never got going in a disappointing 2023, is tied with teammate William Byron for the most top-10 finishes this season at nine. After top-10 finishes in each of the last five races, Bowman is high on confidence as NASCAR goes to the tricky Gateway track, mostly due to his preparation for the venue added to the calendar in only 2022.
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“I’ve put in some time in the simulator and feel like we have some really good notes that we were able to build on years past with. The two different ends of the racetrack are so different than each other, and it’s pretty flat in (turns) three and four. (Turns) one and two have a tighter corner, but it has some banking.”
“The track has long straightaways, requires a lot more shifting than normal, and is just vastly different than our other tracks. Hopefully, we can go out there this weekend and perform better than in 2023,” said the driver, who followed up his 13th-place finish in 2022 with a disappointing 26th place last year.
To be fair to Bowman, it was only his second race after he missed three weeks because of a back injury picked up in a sprint car race.
Despite his terrific streak at the start of the season, where he had three top-5s in the first six races, Bowman’s season is missing just one thing- a win that cements his place in the playoffs. All three of his teammates have won so far and with Kyle Larson getting a waiver by NASCAR in all probability, it is only Bowman who is still in a tricky spot for the postseason.
Among the winless drivers, Bowman is behind only the JGR duo of Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs in the standings. With seven different drivers winning the first 14 races so far, the HMS driver will certainly hope that if he does not win, no new drivers win races or things could get tricky later in the regular season.
