‘I Guess I Choked That One Away’: Alex Bowman Was Just 5 Laps Short of Homestead Victory

HOMESTEAD, Fla — Alex Bowman‘s dark Ray Ban sunglasses covered his emotion as he watched teammate Kyle Larson celebrating on the frontstretch of Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday (March 23) afternoon.

But there was no mistake about it. He felt nothing but disappointment.

For the first time in 2025, Bowman had a real chance at running away with a NASCAR Cup Series win in the waning hours of the Homestead-Miami Speedway afternoon.

But after what had been perhaps the best performance of the 31-year-old in years, Bowman’s sure victory was surrendered to his hard-charging Hendrick Motorsports teammate at the end.

“I guess I choked that one away,” Bowman told the Fox Sports broadcast after the race. “I just kind of burned up my stuff. … I hate that for this Ally No. 48 group. They deserve it really bad.”

Now you're just showing off. 😅 pic.twitter.com/TG1JU1QUaY

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 23, 2025

The tale of Bowman’s folly occurred on what had started as a day of triumph.

On Saturday afternoon, Bowman earned what was his first NASCAR Cup Series pole since the Bristol Motor Speedway night race last year. From there, the afternoon was positive. After leading the initial eight laps, the Arizona native stayed in the picture of the top five for most of what was a field-shuffling race that saw varying pit strategies.

Yet he didn’t lead often. As almost the entire event was dominated by Ryan Blaney. Alas, for the Team Penske Ford, his day literally went up in smoke when he blew an engine on lap 209.

That opened the door for everyone.

When it came to the final restart, Bubba Wallace took the lead and stretched it out to over a second ahead of second place Bowman, who had nailed his restart to get to second. Slowly, methodically, the No. 48 Chevrolet reeled him in, and with only 32 laps to go, made the pass on the 23XI Racing driver.

Back out front, it's @Alex_Bowman! pic.twitter.com/bAelUQeOs5

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 23, 2025

“I felt like our short run speed was obviously really good with being able to drive up there and get the lead,” Bowman told reporters on pit road. “[I] pressured Bubba [Wallace] into a mistake

Bowman, however, upon trying to sail away from Wallace, tagged the outside wall.

That is, it was the first time.

“Right after I passed Bubba [Wallace], I hit the fence once pretty good and bent something in the right front that made my life more difficult than I wanted it to be,” Bowman recalled. “From then on I just wasn’t nearly as good at running the wall and kind of struggled from there.”

Yet over the number of laps, Bowman put on a performance he had not accomplished in years. By the end of the day, the Hendrick driver had led 43 laps – the most he had paced the field in a Cup race since Kansas Speedway in 2022.

With full seconds between he and the rest of the field, the laps winding down and nobody seeming able to challenge him, it looked like a sure win was coming for the Showman.

Until Larson picked up the pace, and Bowman knew it.

With only 12 laps to go, Larson was running lap times a whole 0.300 seconds faster than his teammate. In only seven laps, he had passed three other cars and cut what was Bowman’s two-second lead ahead of him down to a mere couple car lengths.

“I knew he was coming,” Bowman recalled. “I knew I just needed to take his air, but that wasn’t going to be enough with as burned off as my stuff was by that point.”

Bowman, who felt the pressure to pick up the pace himself, pushed it too hard and hit the fence a second time only five laps away from victory.

Bowman in the wall!

Larson to the lead!! pic.twitter.com/PfxEa2nQQD

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 23, 2025

“I just tried to get too much there and hit the fence a couple times,” Bowman said. “It bent the right front and then kind of lost feel of where I was at with the right front being bent and really hit the fence and let the No. 5 by.

“It’s on me, just need to do a better job there.”

But not all is lost for the weekend. While Bowman had to walk away from Miami with a runner-up finish, he still had some things to be proud off after what was a competitive day for the No. 48.

“Qualifying well here was important,” Bowman said. “I think qualifying has been a weakness on the 48 team in general. We executed all day pretty well and did a lot of the right things. I don’t think I would have thought that I could come here and run the wall a lot better.”

To top it off, the only person he lost to on Sunday was Larson. That’s no slouch to be sure.

“[It’s] annoying,” Bowman continued. “But Kyle [Larson]’s the greatest race car driver of our generation. If that’s the one guy that beat us this week, it’s certainly not the end of the world.

“But we need to go get some trophies for sure.”