Belgian Solar Team takes lead in Sasol Solar Challenge
The Belgian Solar Team took the lead in the Sasol Solar Challenge today. With their newest solar car, the BluePoint Atlas, they were able to cover almost 80 kilometres more than their biggest competitor. This not only enabled them to win today's stage, but also to take first place in the overall ranking.
Difficult track
Today's track was very challenging for the solar car due to the bad road surface. Some deep potholes in the road surface could potentially damage the car. This made today's stage a great challenge for both the supporting team and the pilots. During this stage, the students of the KU Leuven were able to make good use of the agile design of the BluePoint Atlas.
We were able to make up a lot of kilometres today thanks to the agile design of the car. We were able to drive between the pot holes of the loop very smoothly thanks to good communication. This gave us a total lead of 20 kilometres over our biggest competitor, the team from Delft. We are the day's winner and also the leader in the general classification.
Zander Radelet (23, Aarschot), Aerodynamic Engineer of the Agoria Solar Team
To ensure that the pits in the road surface were sufficiently visible to the pilots, they were marked by the rest of the team. In this way, the risk of damaging the solar car was minimised.
Preview
In the coming days, the team will do everything in its power to maintain this lead and finish as the winner in Cape Town on Friday 16 September. A challenging stage is scheduled for tomorrow. The engineering students will head into the mountains tomorrow with their solar car.
We did a very good stage today. We won the day, because we drove 78 kilometres more than the team from Delft. That also puts us in the overall lead by about 20 kilometres. Of course, it is only day three so the race is certainly not over yet. There are still very challenging days ahead. Tomorrow there is the Lootsberg pass. Driving up a mountain in the solar car is always a big challenge, so it's going to be exciting.
Mathieu Peeters (25), Electrical Engineer with the Agoria Solar Team
