Canberra driver Cameron Hill will remember his Australian Grand Prix debut for all the wrong reasons but he is adamant he can bounce back.
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Hill was involved in a start-line crash in the opening race of the Porsche Carrera Cup's second round at the Australian Grand Prix on Thursday evening.
While the 21-year-old escaped injury having undergone precautionary scans in the circuit medical centre, his car was not so lucky.
The car sustained heavy damage and has the family-run outfit weighing up their options to fix it because they've been battered on the financial front.
"I stalled on the start line and was stuck there as everyone else took off," Hill said.
"I got cleaned up from behind from a bloke doing 120km-plus. It wasn't his fault, he had nowhere to go, he was unsighted, and I got cleaned up and took a massive hit from behind, now the car is totalled.
"I'm not too bad. They took me to the medical centre, my lower back is quite sore. I had x-rays and that's all okay but I'm quite bruised. Hopefully I'll just rest up and in a few days I'll be A-okay again.
"We're assessing what we need to do to the car, it's quite extensive, the damage. The chassis is a throw away, we're going to have to get a new chassis."
Hill finished ninth overall in the opening round of the Carrera Cup in Adelaide earlier this month, which was the best return for a Porsche rookie apart from former Supercars racer Dale Wood.
But the major setback in round two could cost him an appearance in the third round at the Phillip Island 500 beginning on April 20.
Hill says if all goes to plan he will be back out on the grid at Phillip Island, while the "worst case scenario" would be waiting until round four at the Darwin Triple Crown on June 15 to return.
"It's tough obviously because we were tight on budget this year as it is," Hill said.
"We were scraping together to try to make this happen and this is a big setback, a big hurdle. But everyone has been really positive and already in problem-solving mode, already thinking about how we are going to make it happen which is really cool.
"We're definitely going to have to count our chips and see where we are because it definitely hurt us on a financial front."
