Alex Bowman knows the questions are coming.
After nine seasons with Hendrick Motorsports, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet is entering the final year of his current contract while enduring one of the toughest stretches of his NASCAR Cup Series career. With Silly Season beginning to heat up, speculation surrounding Bowman’s future has only intensified.
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But despite the outside noise, Bowman says he isn’t approaching every weekend as though his job depends on it.
“I definitely don’t feel like I’m racing for my job or anything like that by any means,” Bowman said during a Tuesday media availability ahead of NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway.
Bowman insists his focus remains on improving the No. 48 team
The 33-year-old has endured a frustrating 2026 campaign.
He missed four races earlier this season because of vertigo, has recorded just two top-five finishes and enters Chicagoland 29th in the Cup Series standings, well outside the Chase picture.
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Bowman is now in the final season of the three-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports, making him one of the biggest names to watch as Silly Season unfolds.
Still, Bowman says contract talks haven’t become his primary concern.
“I’m just trying to do my part to try to help (Hendrick Motorsports) be the best it can be right now and obviously trying to get things turned back around on the 48 side of things,” Bowman said. “Really just kind of week-to-week focused on trying to get pointed back in the right direction.”
He added that discussions about 2027 have taken place but admitted racing has occupied far more of his attention.
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“It’s been interesting,” Bowman said. “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of different conversations and kind of trying to figure out what the best thing to do is, so I would say sooner rather than later, for sure. But really, I guess I haven’t really thought about (it). Like, it hasn’t been the first thing on my mind by any means, and really just been working hard at trying to get things pointed in the right direction.”
Bowman believes better days are ahead
Although the results have been disappointing, Bowman doesn’t believe the No. 48 team’s performance has been as poor as the finishing positions suggest.
“We’ve had some good weeks and a lot of not good weeks, unfortunately,” Bowman said. “It’s been really, really interesting. The places that we feel like we should run well at, like Bristol, Kansas, Dover … places that we’re historically really, really good at, Dover caught me off guard.”
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He continued: “We were always fast there and we were really bad. And then places that we historically struggle at like Texas and Sonoma, we were good at, so that’s been confusing on that side of things.”
Bowman also believes Hendrick Motorsports as a whole hasn’t consistently performed to its usual standard.
“As a company, we’re a little off of where we want to be, so just trying to get pointed in the right direction,” he said. “Got a lot of really smart people at Hendrick Motorsports working really hard to get things rolling where they need to be. And I think our finishes are certainly worse than they should be.”
Despite sitting outside the playoff picture, Bowman believes the team has shown enough speed recently to build momentum during the second half of the season.
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“I think we’ve had better cars and we’ve been running better than we finished at a lot of these places, but unfortunately, yeah, it’s been a bit of a struggle,” Bowman said. “So just trying to get pointed back in the right direction. I think Sonoma was at least a step that way.”
Whether Bowman remains in the No. 48 Chevrolet beyond 2026 remains one of NASCAR’s biggest unanswered Silly Season questions. For now, though, the veteran insists his focus remains exactly where it has been all season: getting Hendrick Motorsports pointed back in the right direction.
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