"That rumor has certainly been annoying," said Bowman during NASCAR Playoff Media Day on Wednesday.
"Obviously, my contract is through the end of 2026. All I can tell you is like what my bosses have told me, and that is that there are no plans to change anything. Yeah, rumors are just rumors. Hopefully they’ll get their announcements done so my rumors stop, obviously. Yeah, as far as I know, I’m driving the No. 48 next year.”
Bowman, who made the 2024 playoffs via a win at the Chicago Street Course, lags just behind his teammates in most season-long stats. It's been a decent season for him, but Hendrick Motorsports is expected to perform at level beyond most of their rivals. Before Chicago, it had been over two years since Bowman's last race win. He also missed races in 2022 due to a concussion and 2023 due to a back injury, which proved to be significant setbacks.
When pressed on if there is any chance he could be out at HMS, Bowman added: "I don’t think so. I trust my bosses and that’s what they’ve told me. So yeah, other than that, just focused on trying to be strong the next 10 weeks.”
The rumblings, even if unfounded, caused Bowman to seek confirmation on his position within the team.
“Yeah, I mean for me – like that’s a rumor that I’ve heard for a month," he explained. "It got to the point where I picked up the phone and called everybody, and everybody said, ‘absolutely not’. So, that’s really all I have to go on and I don’t have a reason to believe anything other than that. There’s no – 'oh, you need to do this to keep your job.' Like it’s absolutely not ... everything’s fine."
A "miserable month"
Bowman first drove for Hendrick Motorsports as the fill-in driver for a sidelined Dale Earnhardt Jr. late in the 2016 season. He became a full-time for the powerhouse organization in 2018 and has since won eight races. Half of those victories came during a single season (2021), and only once has he ended the year higher than 12th in the standings.
"We need to go run better. It’s been a miserable month," admitted Bowman, who enters the playoffs with five straight finishes of 16th or worse. "We haven’t executed on a high level at all, so we need to go run better the next 10 weeks. But we need to do that for us and our playoff run -- for Ally and the No. 48 team. There’s no 'you need to do this to keep your job.' As far as I know, I’m not worried about that at all.”
