NASCAR insider: Alex Bowman 'didn't choke' at Homestead

Alex Bowman was critical of his performance at the end of the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Even though he finished as the runner-up to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson, Bowman thought he let the win get away from his grasp.

“I guess I choked that one away,” lamented Bowman after the race, via Motorsport. “Saw the 5 [Larson] coming, so moved around a little bit. Not when he passed me, but the time before that I hit it hard with the right front and ended up just bending something enough that I lost a lot of right front feel and then I pulled it off the wall too far right there, and ended up hitting the fence pretty bad.

“So I hate that for this Ally 48 group. They deserve better than that. Just a couple of mistakes there. I felt like we were okay all day. That last run was the best we were … Hate it for Mr. Hendrick. Congrats to Kyle. We’re going to try get another one this week.”

While Bowman was disappointed, NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic weren’t as hard on the No. 48 wheelman. The duo took some time on the latest episode of their podcast The Teardown to ease Bowman’s pain, explaining why the end of the race was more of a credit to Larson than a mark against the 31-year old.

“Bowman, I think, is being too hard on himself,” Gluck stated. “He says he choked it away. … Larson was on his way up. Bowman’s team came on the radio and they say, ‘Hey, you might want to try running the wall, because Larson’s on his way.’ So Bowman’s like, ‘Okay, yeah.’ So, he does that. He makes contact with the wall a couple of times. You also know that Larson is charging. This is a guy who’s led the most laps of anybody at Homestead, even though he only had one Homestead win prior to today. He’s in your rear-view mirror. You’re like — you’re just trying to defend. You’re trying to think about what you can do, you’re trying to get aggressive, leave no distance between yourself and the wall.

“Makes a mistake. It makes it easier on Larson to pass than he would have. But I think — I really do think Larson was gonna track him down anyway. I mean, maybe it would’ve been on the last two laps, but Larson had more speed at that point, it felt like to me.”

Bianchi shared the same opinion as his partner in Gluck. At the end of the day, it’s a tall task to hold off a charging Larson at Homestead, and the No. 48 wheelman found that out over the weekend. Still, a P2 finish is something to be elated with. 

“It’s hard to beat Larson here,” Bianchi added. “Like, he didn’t choke. … I always felt like the No. 5 was faster. The No. 5 just didn’t always have track position today. It was always kind of an uphill battle. They never had complete control of this race, and that so often is the case. At Homestead, as Larson usually gets the lead here, and it’s really hard to wrestle away from him, and he can kind of set his pace and set his style how he wants to. He was never had to do that today, and I always thought Bowman was a sitting duck. 

“That’s no disrespect to Bowman. It’s just — this is Kyle Larson. This is Homestead. This is the No. 5 team. This is what they do. You can’t beat yourself up for bouncing off the wall, because every driver bounced off the wall today.”

Alas, Alex Bowman has been consistent as anyone in the NASCAR Cup Series through the first month, notching five top ten finishes in six races. Still, this feels like a win got away from him, and that’s never a fun result. We’ll see if he can get back on the horse at a track he’s won at in the past in Martinsville Speedway this coming weekend, and put his runner-up finish in Miami in his rear-view mirror.