Alex Bowman reacts to scary NASCAR playoff bubble situation heading into Daytona

Alex Bowman sure would love to be feeling comfortable heading into Saturday’s regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway. Bowman is ninth in the points standings, and his 14 top 10s are tied for the second-most among NASCAR Cup Series drivers.

But without a win to his name this season, Bowman is anything but comfortable. There have been 14 winners this season. Tyler Reddick has the 15th playoff spot, +89 above the cutline and 29 points ahead of Bowman. If there’s a new winner at Daytona, only one of Reddick or Bowman will get into the playoffs. Both will be playoff bound if there is no new winner — it’s that simple. Could it actually be in both Bowman, a Chevrolet driver, and Reddick, a Toyota driver, best interests to work together?

“After the stages, we might be each other’s best friend. It is weird; it’s a really weird situation to be in,” Bowman told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “There’s a lot of winners, right? We’re ahead of half of them in points, but it’s the situation we’re in. We’ve got to do our best to make it happen. It sucks that we’ve let a couple slip away this year, but it’s where we’re at.”

Alex Bowman heading to Daytona to win

Bowman, of course, will have plenty of help from his Hendrick Motorsports teammates. William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson — all winners in 2025 — have nothing to worry about at Daytona. If one of them wins, Bowman is going to the playoffs. While that outcome will do, Bowman’s mindset is to win at Daytona; it has to be.

“We typically work really well together,” Bowman said of his Hendrick teammates, via Lee Spencer of Catchfence. “And if one of them wins, we’re in. Obviously, there are a lot of different ways we can get in, and there’s a couple of different ways we can get knocked out.

“Just need to try and put ourselves in position and control what we can control and kind of go from there.”