Posted October 09, 2017 19:13:05

Photo: Saamiul Bashar says the Western Sydney solar team is thinking ahead, as clouds gather over the course. (ABC News: Steven Schubert)

An Australian solar car racing team remains close to the leaders as the race across the continent continues.

The Western Sydney University team is competing in the 3,000 kilometre race from Darwin to Adelaide for only the third time.

They finished day one in third place, only 10 minutes behind the leaders, but halfway through day two had fallen back to fifth, and 31 minutes behind.

However, team leader Saamiul Bashar said he was confident the team could regain some ground.

"We pushed a bit hard this morning for track position and now we're just trying to recuperate in anticipation of some pretty poor weather on Tuesday," he said.

Mr Bashar said the team was content to go slower to conserve energy as clouds gather over the course.

"Tomorrow's expected to be much worse so we need to be thinking a lot further ahead.

"We're about 1,000 kilometres in now, at Tennant Creek, so there's still another 2,000 kilometres to go so we've always got to be thinking long term.

"We think that depending on how everyone else deals with the weather we might have an advantage."

Photo: The Belgian team in action on day two of the Challenge. (ABC News: Steven Schubert)

When asked if he thought they could win, Mr Bashar said "anything could happen".

"We know we're facing teams with much bigger budgets, much more resources, so to be passed today doesn't feel too bad but at the same time we're still punching pretty far above our weight."

He said he could not describe how it would feel if his team won.

"For us this is two years of work, 80, 90, 100 hours a week kind of work, so to win would mean an incredible amount to the team."

Topics: solar-energy, racing, darwin-0800, tennant-creek-0860, nt