Hill was running inside the top 10 when he endured a sudden brake failure midway through the race, forcing him to limp back to pit lane.
There the team found a litany of broken components – as well as a bolt wedged into the left-front caliper.
“At first we were like, ‘what the hell?’, but we found evidence of a small bolt that had come in, we think through the brake duct,” Stone explained to Speedcafe.
“It sort of rattled around inside, broken the mountings that hold the disc to the hub, effectively, and then the pad started to disintegrate.
“Fortunately for our forensic analysis, the lucky little bolt that came flying through has wedged itself into the caliper, so we were able to see what caused all that damage.
“But we were perplexed when it came in because I’d never seen a brake pad folded in half, I didn’t think that was possible. Quite a bizarre scenario.”
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Brake issues for Cam Hill and he’s forced out of the race!#RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/rhglEvzIaq
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While the team will further investigate the situation, Stone is convinced the bolt had not come from within the car.
“There’s certainly bolts of that nature on the car, but nothing further forward of that,” he said.
“We’ll obviously make sure it hasn’t come from somewhere random on the car and found its way in there, but at first glance it certainly seems to have come in the front.
“Whether it came off a support category or one of the other cars is hard to know.”
The team replaced the brake line, caliper, disc, and pads before bleeding the system and sending the car back out to pick up points for last place.
Describing the incident to Speedcafe, Hill revealed he had feared a steering problem before the brakes suddenly failed.
“It made a proper mess, it smashed the hat up, the disc probably came off and the pad exploded, it was pretty gnarly,” Hill said.
“I felt it go just before I got on the brake pedal and the pedal just went to the floor and it sounded awful.
“Interestingly I had a vibration for about 15 laps already, but that vibration was still there and the rack started to feel pretty yucky by the end.
“It might not have made much difference, the bolt, because it seemed like the rack was on its way out.
“But I’m just gutted for our guys. We worked really hard, we were struggling a bit on Friday, and I felt like we were making our car better each day.
“We were on for a good result and another one goes begging. You just can’t afford that in this championship situation we’re in.”
Hill sits 11th in the championship with three rounds remaining before the Finals cut-off.
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