Two student racing teams from the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) have won top honors at the 2026 Baja SAE China, held in Tongxiang, Zhejiang province.

Organized by the China Society of Automotive Engineers, this year's competition opened on Aug 26 and drew 122 teams from 86 universities who went through both static judging and dynamic events.

The BIT Intelligent Baja team claimed the national overall championship in the intelligent-vehicle class with 972.5 points out of a possible total of 1,000 points, while the BIT Baja team finished national runner-up in the internal-combustion undergraduate class and third in the electric class.

It was the first official outing for the BIT Intelligent Baja team. Its vehicle had to cope with complex off-road conditions, tested on traction and directional stability, path planning and system robustness. The team coordinated the development of the chassis, perception hardware and autonomous-driving algorithms, tackling such difficulties as interference-prone perception under off-road working conditions and insufficient long-term system stability.

Meanwhile, the BIT Baja team also entered two powertrain classes. In the internal-combustion undergraduate class, its U02 car dealt with deep ruts, steep slopes and loose gravel and finished the full program, including the four-hour endurance race, in which components are exposed to sustained vibration and high temperatures over long stretches of off-road driving.

It finished second overall, and also took first place in the single-lap time trial, second in both the four-hour endurance race and the maneuverability event, and third in the straight-line hill climb, together with suspension design, manufacturing craftsmanship and ergonomics design awards.