Alex Bowman on NASCAR Cup Future: 'I Don't Feel Like I'm Racing For My Job'

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Alex Bowman candidly said Tuesday he doesn't feel like he is racing for his job during the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. 

"I don't feel like I'm racing for my job or anything like that by any means," Bowman said. 

In the court of public opinion, Bowman has been on the hot seat seemingly ever since he was named to Hendrick Motorsports' full-time Cup Series lineup for 2018. With his struggles, another absence and a couple of young prospects floating around, 2026 has turned the public heat up high enough to match the primary color of his car.

With vertigo being the issue this year and a harder problem to solve than a back injury, for instance, Bowman's future is up in the air.

"I want to make the right decision for myself," Bowman said. "I'm at a point in my life where I'm super blessed to be in a position where I don't have to do this forever and I gotta make the right decision and I want Hendrick Motorsports to make the right decision and kind of everybody to be on board with whatever we do. I think I have a lot of faith in Rick and Jeff and everybody to kind of guide all of us the right way."

Behind closed doors, discussions about his future are ongoing but not pressing. 

"We've had a lot of different conversations, kind of trying to figure out what the best thing to do is," Bowman said. "But, you know... it hasn't been like the first thing on my mind by any means.

"I've kind of avoided the rumors and kind of just been trying to do my job."

Bowman is coming off of a top-10 finish at Sonoma Raceway. It was his third top-10 finish of the season after two third-place finishes – at Talladega Superspeedway and Texas Motor Speedway in the spring, now two months ago.

"We've had three good weeks and a lot of not good weeks, unfortunately," Bowman said with a laugh. "It's been really, really interesting, the places that we feel like we should run well at... Bristol, Kansas, Dover... places that were historically like really, really good at, we're always fast there and we were really bad."

Through 18 races, Bowman and teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron have yet to win. Chase Elliott has won twice but the organization is visibly trying to find winning speed with the new Chevrolet body.

"I think globally, as a company, we're a little off of where we want to be... We got a lot of really smart people at Hendrick Motorsports working really hard to get things kind of rolling where they need to be and I think our finishes are certainly worse than they should be," Bowman said. "Just trying to get pointed back in the right direction, I think Sonoma was at least a step that that way."

With the way the NASCAR Cup Series is, it's easy for one issue to lead into more issues as the weeks go on.

"Once you get stuck in group one, you're going to qualify bad, then your pit stall selection is going to be bad and then it just snowballs and snowballs and snowballs, so hopefully we can get on the other side of that and just keep putting together solid races," Bowman said.

Bowman and crew chief Blake Harris have stayed strong through the process.

"Our radios haven't worked for the last two months, so we haven't really been able to talk to each other on the radio very much, honestly... so I don't even know that we've been that testy with each other, because I don't think we've heard each other. But at the shop, everything's been okay," Bowman said. "Things haven't been where either one of us want it to be but we're certainly both working super hard and pulling the same direction and communicating and still doing all the same things to try to get the 48 team to run the best it can."

The No. 48 is moving forward in the NASCAR In-Season Challenge after taking down Tyler Reddick. His No. 48 Ally Chevrolet finished 10th, while Reddick's No. 45 Pala Casino Toyota finished 36th, multiple laps down with power steering issues. 

Bowman is also the most recent winner at Chicagoland, in 2019.

"It feels like a really long time ago. I'm definitely looking forward to getting back there. I think that race was super fun. Obviously, back and forth with [Kyle] Larson at the end was really cool to get my first Cup win up against Kyle, with kind of as hard as it was, back and forth, losing the lead, getting it back, that was really special," Bowman said.

Chicagoland is setting up nicely for Bowman. His last two wins in the last 150 races were at Chicago Street Course in July 2024 and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, also a 1.5-mile track, in March 2022. 

"I just think it's going to be tricky with the Next Gen car, like that place is slick, so you're going to be sliding around a lot, which the Next Gen car is just inherently hard to to slide much without it getting away from you and it's very bumpy and Next Gen is is tough through through the bumps, so it'll be interesting to see how the track widens out, what grooves are and aren't at play because of the bumps and see what works," Bowman said.