Alex Bowman scores third career win at Richmond

Alex Bowman picked up his first win of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season in the Toyota Owners 400 Sunday (April 18), passing race leader Denny Hamlin after a restart with 12 laps to go.

Bowman led the final 10 circuits at Richmond Raceway to claim the win.

“We just had a great race car; it’s as simple as that,” Bowman said post-race. “[Crew chief] Greg Ives and all the guys, they have to deal with me at short tracks and I drive these places really wrong.

“We kind of instead of trying to make me figure it out, we went to work on getting the race car where I needed it to be.”

For Bowman, the victory was his third career premier series win and marked the third consecutive season with at least one win.

Bowman is the eighth different winner in the first nine races.

2021 will mark the fourth consecutive season the Tucson, Arizona native will be a part of the NASCAR Playoffs.

“I feel like we’ve had such fast race cars that we knew we were capable of doing a good job, getting into the Playoffs,” Bowman said. “This definitely eases the nerves a little bit.”

On the all-time wins list, Bowman is now tied with eight other drivers for 97th on the Cup Series all-time wins list. Drivers with three victories include Bill Blair, Austin Dillon, Robby Gordon, Dick Linder, Frank Mundy, Elliott Sadler and Gwyn Staley.

Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the Top-5 finishers.

The next Cup Series race is the GEICO 500, scheduled for Sunday, April at Talladega Superspeedway.

SOURCES
NASCAR Media
Raciong-Reference.info