Ian Bakker, team driver and high-voltage engineer, prepares to depart the U-M team’s camp in Ti Tree, Australia, on Day Three of racing. The team had been playing catch-up since starting in 32nd place on Day One. Yes, 32nd place. Bakker is an electrical engineering undergraduate student in the College of Engineering.

The team had a rocky start to the race, literally at the back of the pack. Electrical issues had shut Astrum down in the middle of the speed test that determines the racers’ order at the starting line. The car that finishes this “hot lap” in the shortest time starts the main event first. Because the U-M team couldn’t finish its lap, it started behind 31 other cars.

By the end of day three, Michigan was just under 50 miles behind the third-place team, Brunel. But Astrum’s battery was only 11 percent full, and the weather forecast called for high winds and cloudy skies. To compensate, the team planned to move slowly during the sunny part of the day to refuel. Then when the clouds came in, they would squeeze all the juice they could get out of the battery

Luckily, Astrum’s strategists spent the entire year preparing for the competition by studying passing situations with mathematical models. As a result, the team was well-equipped to adjust its speed and overtake car after car as the race progressed.

Astrum took off at some of the fastest speeds in the 2023 competition — between 53 and 62 mph. “Placing fourth in the world is fantastic,” said Will Jones, the team’s race manager and a senior in mechanical engineering. “This team worked so hard and it’s so validating to finish where we did.” Here, Astrum zooms along the Stuart Highway south of Erldunda, Australia.