Most wins of the World Solar Challenge

The most wins of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is eight, achieved by the Delft Solar Team (NLD; formerly the Nuon Solar Team) a student organization based at the Delft University of Technology. The team secured back-to-back Challenger-Class victories in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007, and had another successful that spanned the the 2013, 2015 and 2017 races. Their most recent victory came on 28 August 2025.

The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge was first held in 1987, and has taken place every other year since 1999. The entrants are required to make the 3,021 km (1,877 mi) trip from Darwin, Northern Territory, to Adelaide, South Australia, under just the power from their vehicle’s on-board solar panels. The race was originally run during the Australian summer (between October and December), but in 2025 the race was shifted to August, which is late winter.

The competing teams are typically based at universities (Delft Solar Team’s members are students at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands) and the event serves as both a showcase of the latest technology and a proving ground for the engineers of tomorrow. The inaugural winner was Sunraycer, an experimental General Motors concept car, which finished in 45 hr 54 min. Despite running the race in winter, and with a much smaller solar panel area, the 2025 winners crossed the finish line in 34 hr 55 min.