“Need to have everything go right”: Alex Bowman hopeful of capitalizing on Homestead pole despite ‘work to do’

Alex Bowman claimed the pole at Homestead for Sunday's Homestead-Miami Speedway race with a stunning lap. The Hendrick Motorsports driver registered a speed of 168.845 miles an hour and was the quickest in the session. As he starts the race from the front row, he unraveled how he wants to capitalize on his advantage during the Straight Talk Wireless 400.

Bowman clocked an impressive 31.982s on the timesheet to put himself in front for the first time this season. The winner of the Las Vegas race, Josh Berry, with 32.055s lap time and 168.460mph top speed, will join him in the front row. Bowman, who is still to win a race this season, would want to use this opportunity as he sets his sights on the race win.

"I feel like we struggled a little bit there in practice in the long run, but short run, maybe Chuck Smash gave us some cloud, we lost him earlier this week. Thinking about the Leary family, and glad to be up front," Bowman told the media after the qualifying session.

Following this, the HMS driver stated how he still has some work to do despite grabbing the pole on Saturday:

"We've overcome a lot this year, I think a lot of people don't realized the amount of things we had go wrong this year in races and honestly those seventh place finishes are pretty good, all things considered. Just need to have everything go right, execute all day, and you know we've got some work to do tomorrow on the long run for sure, but at least we're starting up front, have a good pit stall and put our best foot forward so far."

Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe, and William Byron wrapped up the top five, and Ryan Blaney, John Hunter Nemechek, Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace, and AJ Allmendinger completed the Top 10. Defending champion Joey Logano will start the race from 12th.

---

Alex Bowman's 2025 statistics so far

In the last five races, William Byron is the only Hendrick Motorsports driver to have claimed a victory and qualified for the NASCAR playoffs. As for Alex Bowman, his statistics have been topsy-turvy.

NASCAR Cup Series driver Alex Bowman - Source: Imagn

The #48 driver currently sits in fifth place with 156 points, some 51 points behind his teammate, William Byron. Bowman has claimed four top 10s so far, but no top fives or a victory.

His best race finish arrived at Daytona when he finished sixth. In addition to this, the #48 driver also had decent races at Las Vegas and Phoenix with seventh-place finishes, and Austin with ninth. In Atlanta, he came home in 26th.

Interestingly, Alex Bowman has an impressive average finish position with 11, compared to the average start position of 22.