The history of the Belgian Solar Team began in 2004 with the very first Belgian team that accepted the challenge to build a solar car. Fourteen motivated students from Groep T worked for a whole year on the first Belgian solar car: the Umicar I. After a year of hard graft they entered the World Solar Challenge 2005. Despite the fact that they had little experience, they still managed to obtain a commendable eleventh place. After the race in Australia, the team organised a tour through Belgium during which they received a lot of media attention. This successful outcome of the project was also due to the support from seventy enthusiastic companies. The Umicar I can now be viewed in the Car Museum (Automuseum) in Brussels.

But this was not the end of the story: after the first team, they were determined there should be a sequence. In 2006 a new team was selected and given the task to do even better than the first team. Again fourteen enthusiastic students from Groep T were selected. And a year later the outcome was obvious: they had developed a car that surpassed the previous solar car in all aspects: the Umicar Infinity was born. This was apparent from their more than successful entry for the World Solar Challenge 2007. After an excellent qualification the Umicar Infinity was able to start in first place in its class. In the end, the team managed to steer the Umicar Infinity to a second place. Quite a performance for a team of students from Leuven.

We are now racing with our third team. This team has a hard act to follow: surpassing the performance of the previous two teams. This can only be achieved by building a winning car. As a result the team is completely motivated and will stop at nothing to secure the first place in the World Solar Challenge 2009!