Justin Fontaine released from hospital

Published Feb. 20, 2017 12:44 p.m. ET

Samuel Reiman

Justin Fontaine was released from hospital at 1:30 p.m. ET Sunday following a hard crash in Saturday night’s ARCA Racing Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Fontaine was diagnosed with a mild compression fracture of his L1 vertebrae and will be in a back brace for the next three months.

“I’m going to be focusing on getting healthy... I won’t be racing for a while,” the 19-year-old driver told FOXSports.com.

Fontaine had been running in the top 10 in Saturday’s ARCA race in Daytona Beach, Florida, when his No. 33 Win-Tron Racing Toyota was turned hard into the outside wall coming to five laps left to go. His car then preceded to roll onto its roof.

Fontaine was moving in the car and emergency crews checked he was OK before gradually rolling his machine back onto its wheels. They then cut the roof off of his car before extracting him and transporting him to the Halifax Health Medical Center.

“I just want to let everyone know that I’m OK and I’m thankful for the outreach of support,” said Fontaine in a statement. “I also want to thank Win-Tron Racing for building me a safe race car. I’d also like to especially thank ARCA and the track for their quick actions after the accident. It looks like I’ll be out of the car for a while, but I’d like to thank ProMATIC Automation for giving me the opportunity to compete at Daytona.”

The race was not restarted due to damage to the SAFER barrier. Austin Theriault was declared the race winner.

Click HERE for the full race recap