Student team Forze from the TU Delft are the first in the world to finish a race in a hydrogen powered race car in an official competition. On Saturday 18 August 2018 the team, after a race of 60 minutes, crossed as sixth the finish line in the Supercar Challenge. During this competition, Forze, with a hydrogen race car that they developed themselves, competed against conventional petrol race cars. By achieving a fourth-fastest lap time during the qualification laps, the students have shown that the car could easily keep up with the competition.

Competitive car

Thanks to a completely now bodywork and new, bigger hydrogen tanks the race on Saturday went much better than the students had dared to hope for. The students were targeting the 45-minute duration race on Sunday and therefore hadn't expected to finish the longer ‘endurance race’ on Saturday.
The team's goal this year was to prove that it is possible do drive a complete race on hydrogen, and that goal was achieved. Such an excellent result gives the team great confidence, next year a lot of hard work will go into improving the car.

Hydrogen

A hydrogen car makes electricity from hydrogen and oxygen (which is simply taken from the air while driving) in a fuel cell. This electricity is used to drive electric motors. The only emission that is released, is water Hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, but this requires a lot of electricity. It is therefore important the electricity that is used to produce hydrogen is generated from renewable sources.

Forze Hydrogen Electric Racing

The Forze Hydrogen Electric Racing team has already been in existence since 2007 and has produced eight car since then. The first five cars we still compact carts on hydrogen, which participated in student competitions. Meanwhile the Forze car has grown up into a fully fledged, competitive race car.

 
Video: ForzeDelft