After reaching Alice Springs faster than any team in the past decade, Innoptus’ pace dropped on Tuesday, with headwinds and low light levels slowing teams as they crossed into South Australia.

The event’s defending champions are camped in roughly the same position as they were on day three of the 2019 event – about 40km west of Coober Pedy.

But they are still confident of their chances, having comfortably led the race since Sunday morning.

Innoptus crews check their car. Photo: Frankie the Creative.

Innoptus again deployed its retractable fin to help reduce the effects of Tuesday’s headwinds. While designed primarily to combat crosswinds, the sail-like extension helps reduce aerodynamic drag in all conditions and remained up for about 70 per cent of the day.

Innoptus race strategist Frederik Vanmaele said the fin helped the team reduce the additional cost of riding against the headwinds, as stronger and more variable winds are expected as teams approach Coober Pedy and head towards Port Augusta today.

“We hope to have a very good morning charge [on Wednesday],” Vanmaele said.

“We have to look at the control stop at Coober Pedy to make sure our car doesn’t flip over with the wind and then afterwards there should be more crosswinds before Glendambo.

“We’re expecting quite a fast race from now.”

Solar Team Twente averaged over 90km/h on Tuesday to halve Innoptus’ start-of-day advantage. They are now camped 24km behind the race leaders.

“We determined our ideal strategy to get to Adelaide as fast as possible,” team leader Kirsten Bouwman said.

“I can imagine [Innoptus] are maybe a bit surprised. They’ve been at the front of us since the beginning and now we’re actually getting close.”

2. Solar Team Twente’s roadside camp is passed by a road train. Photo: Matthew Ward Agius /Cosmos

Another Dutch team – Brunel – maintained touch with the lead cars and sits 115km behind the lead. The gap is not insurmountable but will rely on particularly advantageous conditions.

As the only lead team running a “catamaran” body, Brunel’s vehicle is aerodynamically optimised to harness Coober Pedy’s crosswinds.

“Tomorrow, the winds are going to be way, way more,” Brunel team leader Lennert Hessels said.

“I think with the unsurprising conditions that we always see around Coober Pedy, more wind and more clouds only will help us, because that’s exactly what we’re preparing for.”

Further back, the University of Michigan team continued its impressive charge through the field.

After starting Sunday in 31^st position, it now sits fourth on the road – 193km from the lead. It overtook Germany’s Team Sonnenwagen Aachen early on Tuesday and is camping in Marla overnight.

3. The Brunel solar car zips through Mount Willoughby. Photo: Matthew Ward Agius /Cosmos

“Being at the ‘back of the grid’ was a big hit, it was really disappointing, especially since [our car] ‘Astrum’ was performing really well on the track just the day before,” Michigan spokesperson Bonnie Zhu said.

“However, we knew that this challenge is a marathon, not a sprint. Our strategy was always to focus on ourselves and not let our competition distract us from doing our best. We’re expecting good things tomorrow.”

The race is now led by four teams with new state-of-the-art batteries from American manufacturer Amprius.

That power pack, which is expected to be standard across all teams by the time the 2025 event rolls around, offers at least another kilowatt on previous power cells used in solar car competition.

These four teams reported around 30 per cent better capacity in the battery for roughly the same amount of weight of units used by other competitors.

The first car is expected to arrive in Adelaide on Thursday morning.

This story first appeared in Cosmos magazine. Follow their race updates here.