"We need to do a lot of things better": Alex Bowman self critical after shutting down HMS exit rumors 

Ahead of the start of this season's playoffs, Alex Bowman faced a silly season rumor. It suggested that the #48 driver was on the verge of losing his seat at Hendrick Motorsports next season.

Bowman, who has had four finishes inside the top 5 as well as a win at Chicago that took him to the playoffs, shut off such rumors recently. He assured fans that he would be returning to the #48 car in 2025.

Despite that, Alex Bowman didn't shy away from admitting his and his team's shortcomings this year. When asked by SiriusXM NASCAR Radio whether there's something he can point at or fix to get better, Bowman said:

"It's been a lot of things."

Bowman recalled the Brickyard 400, where the #48 team was fast but because of poor strategy and a late-race wreck, it didn't work. At Richmond, he admitted that they weren't "good at all", following which he sped on pit road and made it "worse than not good" for his team.

For Michigan, Alex Bowman was on the way to a solid top 10 until he crashed at the end. While at Daytona, he spoke about the car that flew through his Camaro, a wild incident from which he thankfully survived unhurt.

As for Darlington, Bowman claimed that he simply "missed it", and along with the pit road issues, it all added up to them again not being good.

"So it's been a little bit of everything. We need to be faster but we also need to execute. Like Darlington in spring, we were terrible but we executed our way to an 8th place finish. Darlington in the fall, we struggled and we executed our way to a 19th place finish. So we need to do a lot of things better, across the board, myself included," Bowman added.

Hendrick Motorsports leadership has 'a lot of confidence' in Alex Bowman

After Bowman busted the rumors of him being out of the seat at HMS next year, Jeff Gordon, the Vice Chairman at Hendrick Motorsports, made it certain that the driver they're counting on for the #48 car in 2025 is Alex Bowman.

“Yeah, you know, don’t like to address rumors ’cause that’s what they are, but, you know, we have a lot of confidence in [Alex Bowman], and [Blake Harris], and the whole No. 48 team. Nobody wants to see them go deeper into the playoffs or go to Phoenix and compete for a championship more than we do. We believe in those guys," Gordon said, as per USA Today.

The 4x Cup champion claimed that he understands the nature of silly season as well as the things that can happen when performance isn't up to par for teams like HMS.

On the other hand, Gordon insisted that despite the underwhelming performance and the rumors, they're excited about what the future holds.