Belgium is a small country with a big solar racing tradition. It started at Groep T, a technical college in Leuven, whose students formed the Umicore Solar Team, named after its main sponsor. After a 10th place with Umicar One in 2005, the team returned to Australia in 2007 with a much more ambitious car: the Umicar Infinity.
The Infinity is a three-wheeler with a carbon-fibre body and about 6 m² of multi-junction solar cells, the high-efficiency type usually found on satellites. At the Hidden Valley race track in Darwin it set the fastest qualifying lap and started the World Solar Challenge from first position. At the end of the first race day it was still leading.
Then the steering system failed and the team lost about two hours on the roadside fixing it. They fought back and reached Adelaide in second place, only about an hour and a half behind the winner, after 2,999 km in 34 hours 36 minutes, an average of 88 km/h.
The team kept building a new car every two years: Umicar Inspire (2009), Umicar Imagine (2011) with tandem cells and concentrator lenses, and later the Punch One and Punch Two. Punch Two won an innovation award for its four-wheel steering, which let the car sit at an angle and sail on the crosswind. Under its later names, Agoria and Innoptus Solar Team, the KU Leuven team finally won the World Solar Challenge.
The 2007 race was won by Delft’s Nuna 4, a successor of Nuna 3. Many other student racers are on our site, from Aurora 101 to Sunswift 7.
Technical data
| Builder | Umicore Solar Team, Groep T Leuven (Belgium) |
|---|---|
| Year | 2007 |
| Layout | Three wheels, carbon-fibre body |
| Solar | ~6 m² multi-junction cells |
| Result | World Solar Challenge 2007: 2nd, 2,999 km in 34:36 h, Ø 88.05 km/h; fastest qualifier |
| Team today | Innoptus Solar Team (KU Leuven) |
Photos
- Top photo: Kevin Solarteam / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Umicar Infinity on show in the atrium of Groep T in Leuven. Photo: Tombonte / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Its successor Umicar Imagine (2011) used tandem cells with c… Photo: Ilias.viaene / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Umicar Inspire, the 2009 car, at the Zolder race track. Photo: JNas / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0