Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2025

A couple of weeks ago the 2025 edition of the 3000km race from Darwin to Adelaide concluded in Adelaide and I went up to view the vehicles on public display.

There were two classes:

The "F1" equivalent "Challenger" class winner finished in just under 35 racing hours at an average speed of 86.6kph

The other is the "Cruiser" class, which aspire to carry one or more passengers other than the driver, and the winner finished in 44 racing hours at an average of 68.7kph.

The race has been conducted for a number of years but the first time it was conducted in winter (winter below the tropic of cancer anyway). Less sun for power but also less heat stress on the drivers in their pods.

Externally there are a lot of visual similarities in the Challenger class to achieve low aerodynamic drag, the allowed 6 square metres of solar panels. The driver is either centrally mounted or offset to one side.

Internally there is much more variation depending on whether they could afford a carbon-fibre monocoque or went for a more conservative and cheaper skinned tubular steel frame.

The suspension engineering was pretty impressive because maximum speeds could be as high as the 130kph limits in the Northern Territory and also had to survive traversing cattle grids at speed.

Aero is so important because they not only need low drag but must have stability to survive crosswinds and gusts from oncoming road-trains.

It is all cutting-edge stuff and talking to a couple of the support teams they had their work cut out getting sleep in tents (in the outback), maintaining the cars and then driving all day between obligatory control points.

Lots of videos online and a good place to start is:

Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2025

Edited 11 September, 202511 Sep by Gerrycan
Added photos