The Nuon Solar Team, sponsored and supported by AkzoNobel, has again claimed victory in the biennial Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia. The 3,000km event runs from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south and this year was contested by 42 teams from universities and schools around the world.

For the winning Nuon Solar Team, made up of students from the Delft University of Technology, there were nail-biting moments on the fourth and final day when on several occasions they almost ran out of charge due to cloud cover. As defending champions from 2013 the Nuon Solar Team won by a margin of 3 minutes 35 seconds, ahead of another Dutch team, Twente.

A new Nuon Solar Team is formed every 18 months to develop and race its own solar-powered car. Members come from a variety of faculties across the University, including aeronautical engineering, mechanical engineering and mathematics, and their multidisciplinary team handles the whole endeavor , from design and build, through sponsorship, communications and project management, to the race itself.

Remco Maassen van den Brink, AkzoNobel’s Vehicle Refinishes Marketing Director explains, “We are always keen to help future engineers and technicians, and to encourage cutting-edge technical developments, and we were delighted to offer our support and coatings expertise.”

A specialised lightweight Sikkens coating was used provide a smooth aerodynamic finish on the rough surface of the vehicles carbon fibre body.  It took almost two weeks to complete the paint job with the Sikkens team at the company’s Automotive Training Center in Sassenheim, polishing the car until its aerodynamic resistance was as low as that of a car’s wing-mirror.