Day 5 - Crossing the finish line

The last race day was shaped by all of the teams going very fast. We all wanted to be the first in Agadir and thanks to yesterday’s repairs while charging at least the Covestro Photon had lots of energy to spare. After climbing the last part of the Atlas Mountains we were closely following behind the first trio. The other teams had already been overtaken in the morning and were left far behind. But it soon became apparent that they also had lots of energy left as the other teams just as were driving at the speed limit for the whole drive through the wide plateaus leading up to Agadir.

15:50.This is the exact moment we crossed the timed finish line at Agadir International Airport. Full of sweat after driving for more than three hours Jan stepped out of the Photon and we could celebrate officially finishing the Solar Challenge Morocco. All doubts that we and many others had after our incident were proven wrong. We had actually made it and were able to successfully compete in the race.

Award ceremony and celebration

After the first quick celebration at the airport, we made our way through the busy city traffic towards the Stade Adrar where the race officially ended and the award ceremony took place. Until the last moments we were not entirely sure in which position we ended up due to the very confusing rules and the race organisations ever changing interpretation of these. Expecting the announcement with great excitement we finally got the official result: 5th place! An amazing result, especially considering what the team went through the past few days.

Pure Excitement – people hugging each other or shouting „Team Sonnenwagen“. These were the scenes of the next few minutes and everybody started to celebrate.