Kevin Harvick Exposes the “Fundamental Mistake” That Got Alex Bowman Eliminated from Playoffs

Ex-NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Haravick shared his thoughts on the mistakes that caused Alex Bowman his titles chances.

Kevin Harvick Exposes the “Fundamental Mistake” That Got Alex Bowman Eliminated from Playoffs

Alex Bowman and Kevin Harvick (Via IMAGO)

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The NASCAR Cup Series race last Sunday at Bristol was a nightmare for Hendrick Motorsports and Alex Bowman. It was the third consecutive race the Chevy giants failed to make a mark despite coming into R-16 with three of their drivers Iin top-5 on the table. The Saturday night race also marked the elimination of the No:48 racing owing to his poor form in the round.

Alex Bowman doesn’t seem to have any ways to get over the worse HMS driver tag, something he has been carrying the last two season. 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick on the latest episode of his Happy Hour podcast shared his thought on the team and the racers performance. He pointed out that Rick Hendrick driver has been plagued with mistakes and execution issues throughout the year.

I think the (Hendrick) drivers have done a decent job, but they’ve even had some speeding penalties, some issues throughout the year that have taken away from weekends where they had speed. We saw the debacle on pit road with pit guns not being plugged in or whatever the final conclusion was.

Kevin Harvick said via Happy Hour podcast.

He then shifted his focus to the No:48 team, who had one of their worse days ever on the pit-box last Saturday, and blamed the lack of proper preparation from an organization level for the failure. Harvick declared that the team made fundamental mistakes and have only themselves to blame for the early elimination.

But it was definitely an error in preparation and structural organization—organizational error in setting up what needed to be organized on the No. 48 pit box. Fundamental mistakes out of the No. 48 team. And it’s like we talk about all the time: don’t beat yourself. Don’t beat yourself. I think if you’re that group, you look at it and think, ‘Wow, we really just took ourselves out.’

Kevin Harvick added.

Kevin Harvick discusses Hendrick Motorsports’ R-16 struggles

Earlier talking about the drop in performance of the team, the ex-SHR driver pointed out that HMS cars lacked speed in the R-16, compared to their regular season performance, which saw William Byron being crowned as the champion. The only positive was the slight performance improvement they showed at St. Louis.

Kevin Harvick
Kevin Harvick (Via IMAGO)

They haven’t had the speed in the opening round like we expected. I think when you look at the Hendrick cars right now, they just haven’t fired off with any speed anywhere we’ve been. I think there was a little bit of hope at St. Louis, at a track where they hadn’t run very well. But that was a tough first round.

Kevin Harvick said.

But considering the standard the team has set for themselves over the years, the results were clearly disappointing. It was substandard personally as well for Harvick, he expected Kyle Larson to be a contender in these races, which witnessed absolute domination of Toyota’s with Joe Gibbs Racing winning all three events.

That was not what we expected. Especially—I mean, I picked Kyle Larson to win the race and he was nowhere to be found all day. And when you’re nowhere to be found at Bristol with Kyle Larson, you’re off.

Kevin Harvick added.

The comments from the former champion shows HMS have an uphill battle ahead of them once the R-12 starts. Fortunately for them they have the best resources and set of drivers in the whole grid to get out of this mess. The only question is if their redemption will be too late to get them into the championship-4.

Also Read: Denny Hamlin Declares There Was “Little Too Much” Tire Wear During Bristol Night Race