CONCORD, N.C. - One of the best seasons of Alex Bowman's career ended in perhaps the most heartbreaking fashion, at least in terms of his 2024 championship hopes.
And yet, it's partly his team's response to a gut punch that has Bowman and the No. 48 bunch harboring some high hopes as the 2025 season draws nearer.
Bowman set a new career high in top-10 finishes (17) and matched his previous best with eight top fives. His ninth-place showing in the final NASCAR Cup Series points standings was his best since coming home sixth in 2020.
But that playoff finish could've been higher save for a disqualification after the Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte ROVAL. Bowman was in position to advance before having it painfully snatched away.
And yet, the team persevered. Bowman finished fifth the following week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and seventh the next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway, continuing a strong run of performance that began with a fifth-place showing in the playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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"I would say the rest of the season we did a really good job," Bowman said. "Honestly, for me, it was frustrating, but it wasn't something that I really had much to do with or any control over. So, just continuing to try to work hard and to execute at a high level was important to me and I feel like we were able to do that."
Even better for Bowman and the No. 48 team, as good a step in the right direction as 2024 was, there is obvious room for even more growth.
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In examining the season in its totality, there were spurts of brilliance and other stretches of struggle. Starting with a fourth-place run at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 17, Bowman registered six top 10s in seven events. But following a ninth-place run in the Coca-Cola 600, he finished better than 14th just once in the ensuing five races.
Then came the season's highlight - a win at the Chicago Street Course - helping Bowman and the team punch a ticket into the playoffs. He followed that up with a third-place run at Pocono Raceway but then went five races without a top 15, leading into the postseason where things drastically swung the right way again.
"I think we were a bit streaky in the beginning of the year," Bowman summarized. "Like there were points where we were really consistent and then we would kind of fall off and then get it back. So, yeah, I mean I think it just kind of lined up for us a little bit, but I mean, we definitely have the potential as a team, we're all capable. Just need to put it all together."
And there's every indication that the No. 48 team can do just that.
One of the biggest reasons is that the team and Bowman have had success on every kind of race track the series currently visits. Of Bowman's eight career victories, all at Hendrick Motorsports, he has two at short tracks (Martinsville Speedway, Richmond Raceway), two at 1.5-mile tracks (Las Vegas, Chicagoland Speedway), two at 2-mile tracks (Auto Club Speedway, Pocono), one at a 1-mile oval (Dover Motor Speedway) and finally, this year's win at a road course.
No, there's no superspeedway win on that list, but Bowman finished second by a matter of inches to teammate William Byron in last year's DAYTONA 500 and he's finished 16th or better at Talladega at Daytona International Speedway in nine of his last 10 starts with three top fives and five top 10s in that stretch.
Clearly capable anywhere, the objective for Bowman is to be consistent everywhere. Or at least to avoid the multi-race lulls that cost the team valuable playoff points heading into the postseason.
Even with 11 years in the sport's premier series under his belt by the age of 31, Bowman still seems to be continuing to grow and improve. As long as that continues, he feels like 2025 could be an even better season than the one that preceded it.
"We have a lot of growth we need to do as a race team on the 48 car," he said. "So, continuing to get the guys to grow together and to learn and to get better and I feel like that really showed up in the second half of the year and our performance. So, yeah, on my side of things too, just trying to get better at places that I've struggled at and really get better everywhere. But definitely focus on kind of the weak points sometimes and I think that's a big part of what we do."
Alex Bowman 2024 NASCAR Cup Series statistics
| Final points position: | 9th |
|---|---|
| Starts: | 36 |
| Wins: | 1 |
| Poles: | 1 |
| Top fives: | 8 (tied career high) |
| Top 10s: | 17 (career high) |
| DNFs: | 4 |
| Laps led: | 67 |
| Average start: | 13.9 |
| Average finish: | 14.8 |