Stand by for Bowman: Mexico City produces his best Cup finish in months

MEXICO CITY — Alex Bowman turned the most doubtful week of his season into one of his best weekends of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Bowman finished fourth with the fourth-most points earned during Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City. It ended a skid of seven finishes of 27th or worse in the last nine races.

“We’ve had a lot of fast race cars and just had days that haven’t gone our way. We’ve had issues and there’s been times that I’ve crashed the car, so to get them a good run after everything this week and how hard they’ve had to work is great,” Bowman said.

Bowman started 29th on Sunday. After a hard crash in Michigan caused back pain, he had Anthony Alfredo on standby for the weekend.

“Once the adrenaline wore off, there were a lot of questions on if I was going to make it to Mexico,” Bowman said.

MORE: Alex Bowman slips further in NASCAR Cup points after hard Michigan crash

The race started with the field running five of the first 10 laps due to rain and a subsequent crash that wiped out teammate Kyle Larson. Bowman survived and found himself in 19th on lap 13.

Near the end of the 20-lap first stage, crew chief Blake Harris called his driver to pit road. When stage two went green on lap 25, Bowman jumped to 12th. He finished third in the stage – earning eight bonus points on lap 45 – after staying out with SVG and Christopher Bell.

In the final stage, Harris made the same call crew chiefs Stephen Doran and Adam Stevens made for SVG and Bell. They caught a lucky caution on lap 66 that cemented their track position.

It was up to Bowman to try and get to SVG. Like others, he just couldn’t get there. While Bell and Chase Elliott passed him late, Bowman still netted his best finish – fourth – since finishing second nearly three months ago at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“It feels good to get this No. 48 Ally Chevrolet team a run that they deserve,” Bowman said.

Bowman now has three Top-5 finishes and four Top-10s in the last seven Cup road/street course races. That includes a win in Chicago last year.

“I feel like road course racing has become a strong suit for the No. 48 team. I feel like the strategy that we’ve had has been great. Going to slicks there pretty early and getting back positions that way, we’ve done that a couple of times and it makes my job easy from there. So yeah, I think we have a shot at a win. Really, going to Pocono, we have a shot there too. We ran second or third there last year. Just excited to get things pointed in the right direction,” Bowman said.

Bowman is a past winner at three of the next five tracks – Pocono, Chicago and Dover. Sonoma, another road course, is also coming up.

Beyond then lies Richmond, where Bowman is a former winner. Bowman’s history at Watkins Glen and Daytona also favors him well.