Talks of Alex Bowman being out of favor with Hendrick Motorsports haven’t died down even as the No. 48 driver has advanced to the Cup Series Round of 12. He told the press in Bristol that he wasn’t worried about those rumors. Instead, he will be focusing on letting his on-track performance do the talking. And what better way to do that than breaking a traditional playoff curse?
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In the last five times Bowman qualified for the playoffs, he has been knocked out in the Round of 12 four times. Only in 2020 did he survive elimination and progress to the Round of 8. Coming to 2024, he stands as a clear favorite to do so once again. The upcoming tracks – Kansas, Talladega, and the Charlotte Roval – are three of his better ones and he could easily take advantage of them.
Bowman has finished inside the top-10 in the last four races at Kansas. He secured a top-5 finish at Talladega earlier this year. And, he has never finished outside the top 10 at the Roval. Furthermore, he carries huge momentum from the Round of 16 after collecting a total of 120 points in it. No other driver secured more points on the board than him in the first round.
Prediction: Bowman WILL make it past the ‘Round of 12’
– Top-10 finishes in the last four Kansas races
– Top-5 finish at Talladega in the Spring***
– Bowman has NEVER finished outside the top-10 at the ROVAL.Consistency will reward the No. 48 this round. pic.twitter.com/JmBIIey788
— Taylor Kitchen (@_TaylorKitchen_) September 22, 2024
On paper, this means that Bowman can now be considered a championship contender — a title that not many would’ve given him a few weeks earlier. He secured his spot in the postseason through a victory in the Chicago Street Course. But a win isn’t mandatory for him to advance past this stage. Consistency and a points-based approach have worked thus far and it could do so going ahead.
However, there are a few hurdles that he needs to tackle. The biggest of them will be at Talladega. Though he finished in the top-5 in the spring race, it ought to be noted that he hasn’t finished better than 14th in the fall race. And crashes at the superspeedway are what knocked him out in the previous Round of 12s. He can take a page out of his 2020 run to overcome this challenge.
The strategy that he employed then was to string top-10s together almost every single race weekend. His run did not depend on a sudden and surprising victory in one of the tracks but rather on consistency. NASCAR has made it a goal to expel points-based racing in the Cup Series. However, the method is still largely effective in the playoffs.
If only three of 12 drivers can qualify for the Round of 8 based on winning, then points naturally matter to the other five. All Bowman needs to do is stack up as many stage points as he can and finish inside the top 10 in the upcoming three races. Maybe all the rumors of Hendrick Motorsports firing him would die down when he advances to the next round.
