Hill and Robotham recover from pitlane start to finish 15th at the Bathurst 1000

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Making his second start in Australia’s leading touring car event, Cameron Hill has scored a top 15 result despite nursing the Truck Assist Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 through the entire Repco Bathurst 1000.

Sharing with Jaylyn Robotham (who was also making his second Great Race start), Hill continued to make gains through each practice session approaching qualifying. Robotham also displayed improved pace throughout the weekend to place inside the top 10 in the final co-driver only session.

Hill led the way for Truck Assist Racing in qualifying to head Jack Le Brocq in 14th, again missing out on a top 10 shootout by the smallest of margins.

Further performances on Saturday built towards a solid race package for the Great Race, but Hill recognised a clutch problem on the warm up lap and elected to pit prior to the start.

A clutch bleed was completed leaving Hill more than 40s in arrears of the field, but what followed was a superb double stint resulting in the Truck Assist Racing Camaro elevating into the top 12 before a double stack pit stop also added a delay.

Robotham continued this momentum as the duo nursed a wounded clutch pedal, but despite this the Victorian was up to third after going off sequence on strategy before handing back to Hill for the finish.

Hill made his final pit stop where he emerged in 17th as he picked up two positions late and was forced to defend from Will Davison.

Overcoming the early setbacks demonstrated Hill and Robotham’s resilience at the package proved fast across the entire day despite the clutch problem.

With four races left of the Repco Supercars Championship season left, the focus turns to the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 600 where Hill will return as the sole driver of the Truck Assist Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

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Cameron Hill
#35 Truck Assist Racing, Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

“We’ve finished the Bathurst 1000 and it was a huge, huge week,” said Hill.

“I got here back on Tuesday, had a lot of engagements, which were quite enjoyable and I really tried to enjoy the whole week.

“I started building up during the practice sessions into qualifying to build up to a fast pace. I was pretty happy with 14th, though we thought we had potential to get in the top 10. Maybe we didn’t quite maximise, but a very good result for me in my first qualifying session at Bathurst.

“The focus turned to the race and we started having some niggling clutch issues, but every time we thought we’d fixed it a new problem came up.

“We thought we’d fixed it in the warm up, it was mint, but we went out there for the race and on the formation lap the clutch just let us down. I came back into the pits, the boys bled it and we went back out there.

“We were 30s behind in dead last and the clutch was only working about 30% of what it should. Jaylyn did an awesome job handling it as well.

“We had to double stack when we were back into the game in 12th, which put us back again and before we dug our way out again. The last stint was fun trying to go as fast as I could, so to finish in the top 15, on the lead lap we’re very happy with our day here.”