The weather was overcast with patchy cloud, so these were not strong solar conditions. Road conditions were largely good, but there were about 4 km of roadworks which caused tyre problems for many other teams, but we came through them without problems.
We reached the first media stop at Katherine (360 km from Darwin) 9 minutes ahead of the next team, which was the two-seater Japanese entry Tamagawa. In third place was the Northern Territory University's Desert Rose, fourth was OSU from Japan, and fifth was Queen's University of Canada.
Katie Holroyd drove the car from Katherine to the second media stop at Dunmarra, 633 km from Darwin. We arrived here at 4:34 PM and we had increased our lead to 17 minutes over Tamagawa. Third is still Desert Rose and fourth is now Queen's University. These are the only 4 cars to have arrived at Dunmarra.
This is the first time in any World Solar Challenge car race that an Australian team has led the field on any day!
Although we were a bit down on solar power today, owing to the weather conditions, our batteries performed well, and the car ran smoothly and efficiently. The team is well pleased, and are a happy bunch tonight! We expect further cloud tomorrow, so we don't think speeds will be very high.
Still with us is Roy Richie of Whirlpool, and John Hoerner (representing Michelin Tyres who make a big contribution to this event) and his wife have joined us.