The Belgian 'Innoptus Solar Team' from KU Leuven finished third at the World Solar Car Racing Championship in Australia on Thursday.
The KU Leuven students started the world championship in 16th place on Sunday 24 August, but had already climbed to second place on the penultimate day on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the team still had 236 km to cover during the final day of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge to the finish in Adelaide. Ultimately, they took home the bronze medal.
The Belgians finished with a dead battery, and the weather on Thursday morning was worse than expected. As the weather forecast looked even worse towards the finish, the engineering students opted to stop and charge their batteries.
During this half-hour stop, which was necessary to store more energy in the battery, a team from Twente in the Netherlands was able to overtake them, resulting in the Belgians dropping from second to third place.
"We started less than 3 km from first place today," says energy engineer Maarten Vansteenkiste. "Because we did not have enough energy in the morning, we had to make a charging stop, which dropped us to third place. We were able to close the gap on first and second place, but ultimately we finished third."
After two consecutive victories at the World Championship, the Belgians were unable to defend their title this year. Instead, a team from Delft (Netherlands) took the world title, while the students from Twente won the silver medal.
The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge takes place every two years and takes teams from all over the world from Darwin to Adelaide, right through the Australian Outback. During the journey, they cover a distance of 3,021 km. The race is considered the unofficial world championship for solar cars.
The teams were extremely evenly matched this year. The top three finished less than half an hour apart, which is unprecedented in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
