The provisional results

The WSC organisation has put the provisional final results of the race online. From this list, I read several interesting things:

• If we put Tokai at 100%, Nuon finished 3,3% of total race time later and Michigan 8,5% later. That’s close, especially between Tokai an Nuon.
• If we put Ashiya at 100%, Twente finished 0,3 % of total race time later. That’s not close, that’s photo finish stuff!
• If we put Sunswift at 100%, Aurora finished just 0,2 % of total race time later. Again, unbelievably close.
• Out of 37 teams having left the starting line in Darwin, only seven made it past the finish line in Adelaide on solar power before it closed.Wait… didn’t we say somewhere that eight teams finished? What happened to the Umicore Solar Team? They were allowed to continue, right? Yes they were, but apparently the WSC organisation changed their mind and now has listed the Belgians as having travelled ‘only’ 2636 km (still an amazing feat under the circumstances) under solar power. On their (Dutch) website, the team writes the following (in Dutch, text below is a translation):
  
  At this moment there is uncertainty about the official Umicore Solar Team results in the 2011 Veolia World Solar Challenge. We’ve been told that some Belgian media published the fact that we finished in 11th position. Yesterday, at the awards ceremony, we were informed of this result. The official result, however, has not been published. Some extra explanation about this:
  
  After 2636 kilometres in the race the team decided to perform a technical change to the battery pack. The WSC regulations allow for this, provided a time penalty is applied. To be absolutely sure we contacted the organisation to prevent any misunderstandings later on. We received permission that day to perform the change. A decision which has been reversed (for now). The odometer was stopped for our team at this point. We are in discussion with officials to resolve this situation.

  So, the Umicore Solar Team is one of the eight teams that travelled the 3021 km without having had to put the solar racing car on a trailer. We find it remarkable that reports of this have already appeared in the media without having issued a press release. We knowingly waited with this as our final finishing position is not definitive. If more news becomes available we’ll publish that.

  This  is very interesting. We’ll have to wait what the organisation decides, but that might take a while as on the WSC website there is the text “As many of the Observers, Judges and Officials are travelling to thier own countries this matter will be resolved as soon as it is practical to do so.”. If the decision is reversed, Umicore would not have finished at position eleven but at position eight. If and when I find out more about this, I’ll report it here.

[Update October 22th, 11:45 UTC / October 22th 21:15 NT time]

Solar Team Twente just put a video online which gives a picture of how they arrived at the ceremonial finish, and celebrated in the traditional way by taking a dive in the Victoria Square fountain.

[Update October 23th, 09:15 UTC / October 23th 18:45 NT time]

At this moment the WSC award ceremony is in progress:

All the teams together at the award ceremony

Several awards have been granted already (list being updated more or less live):

• Technical innovation award: Nuon Solar Team
• Design award: Hochschule Bochum
• Best newcomer award: Solar Energy Racers
• Production class awards: Aurora, Sunswift and Solar Energy Racers

The University of Michigan team takes third place overall:

The University of Michigan team on the stage

Nuon Solar Team takes second place overall:

The Nuon Solar Team on the stage

And the winner of the 2011 World Solar Challenge on the stage, accepting their deserved first prize, the team from Tokai University:

The team members from Tokai University accepting first prize

[Update October 22th, 11:00 UTC / October 22th 20:30 NT time]

A celebrating Sunswift team

A few hours ago racing day 7 ended, and with it, the 2011 World Solar Challenge. At this time, there is not much information available on which teams crossed the finish line in what order, I’m sure that will become available in the next few hours.

One of the teams that made it to Adelaide within the official time was Sunswift, and we can see them celebrating in the Victoria Square fountain on the right. They also shot this video while overtaking the Swiss Solar Energy Racers team. I know the WSC takes place ‘down under’ but to shoot your video upside-down? Really, guys! According to a Tweet by the team they passed the finish line in sixth position.

The Belgian Umicore team has not published any information through its own channels (they’ve generally been not very communicative this WSC) but this Belgian news site has a photo of Imagine and the team at the ceremonial finish, so I guess it’s safe to say that they’ve finished. A former team member confirmed by online chat that Imagine covered the last 200 km in 2½ hours.

I cannot find any information about the Aurora team. Barring any problem they should have finished today. The same goes for the Istanbul University team. As they communicate much (or at all) I did’t know their exact position at the end of racing day six. I hope they were able to make it to the finish line.

And this concludes the racing part of the 2011 WSC. I will keep posting periodic updates about the teams, but they won’t be as frequent as in the past week. I would like to thank every one for watching, commenting, e-mailing, chatting and being interested in the WSC. Also, many thanks for all the compliments I received, I would like to share them with my co-author Diederik.

[Update October 22th, 09:30 UTC / October 22th 19:00 NT time]

Nuon Solar Team just put a (Dutch) video online which gives a picture of how racing day six went for them, including the finish.

[Update October 21th, 23:15 UTC / October 22th 08:45 NT time]

It is now 08:45 and that means the seventh and final racing day has now started. The weather seems to be a little better and that hopefully means that more solar teams still in the race will make it to the official finish line before it closes than I thought.

I’m afraid I’ll not be reporting for a few hours as I really need to sleep, but rest assured, I’ll report all news I can find in few hours time. Expect more updates from around 07:00-08:00 UTC / 16:30-17:30 NT time, which is just in time for the end of the racing day. It should be known by then which teams will have finished and which teams will not have made it in this bizarrest of World Solar Challenges.

One snippet of news: Sunswift has overtaken Aurora. On the attached photo it looks kind of sunny, which is good sign.

Signing off for now, see you in a few hours. Comments with news are of course more than welcome!

[Update October 21th, 22:30 UTC / October 22th 08:00 NT time]

Solar Team Twente just put a (Dutch) video online which gives a picture of how racing day six went for them, including the finish.