Forze Hydrogen Racing is a hydrogen electric vehicle racing team. It is run by students and was founded at the Delft University of Technology in 2007 by Edgar van Os and has built 8 hydrogen fuel cell racing vehicles. The team's offices and workshops are located at the Schiehal in Delft.^[1] In 2007, the team began designing and building go-karts with a hydrogen-electric drivetrain. With these vehicles they participated in the Formula Zero competition, hence the name ForZe. After five years the first full-size hydrogen race car was built, the Forze VI. Another three years later the project of the Forze VII began. This became the first hydrogen-electric racecar to ever participate in an official race against fossil-fueled vehicles. The latest iteration, the Forze VIII, was the first hydrogen-electric race car to ever beat petrol powered cars, and came in 2nd place at the Gamma Racing Days in Assen in 2019. Over the coming years the team wants to develop its cars in such a way that they can compete in a Le Mans Prototype endurance series.

In a conventional road car, the energy that is stored in fuel is converted to mechanical energy, using the principle of combustion. The cars that are built by Forze utilize a different concept. The hydrogen fuel cell system inside the vehicles converts the energy stored in hydrogen to electric energy. This means that the fuel cell system can be used to power an electric drive train with hydrogen as a so-called alternative fuel.

The efficiency of the fuel conversion can be about two to three times higher than a conventional combustion engine. The most obvious differences of hydrogen-electric vehicles compared to their battery-electric relatives is the time required to recharge or refill, and the driving range. Hydrogen tanks can be refilled within minutes whereas batteries currently take several hours to recharge. This makes hydrogen-electric propulsion ideal for applications where non-stop operation and/or a long driving range is required.

The mission of Forze is to promote fuel cell technology by educating their own team members, but also the general public and to inspire industries to use hydrogen technology. By designing and building their own high performance hydrogen race cars, the potential and application of hydrogen can be demonstrated. Currently, Forze is still the only student team worldwide that uses high power automotive fuel cells.

The team made several official and unofficial world records attempts to beat the FIA world land speed record for hydrogen powered fuel cell cars under 500 kg on the 1/8th mile. On 3 October 2010 the team tried to break the world record held by the Formula Zero Mark II at 11.2 seconds. This attempt took place on the island of Aruba on the Palo Marga International Raceway Park. Unfortunately due to heavy rain part of the island flooded and the attempt was pushed to 4 October. In a much smaller time frame with little time to prepare the vehicle for racing, the team managed to set a time of 9.77 seconds.

On 16 August 2011, the team organized an official attempt on the Princess Beatrixlaan in the center of The Hague. With the help of the Dutch national autosport federation (KNAF) a licensed track to FIA standards was put up. The Forze IV hydrogen vehicle drove a time of 10.45 seconds that day. After several months the FIA ruled that this measured time was not an official land speed record because of an error in the documents submitted by KNAF to the FIA.

In May 2015, the team took the Forze VI to the Nürburgring Nordschleife. With ex-formula 1 driver Jan Lammers they broke the fuel cell lap record by over a minute, which was previously owned by the Nissan FCV X-Trail concept. Lammers accomplished a time of 10:42.58. This time still stands as the fastest fuel cell laptime today.

On 17 December 2015, the full-size Forze VI obtained the fastest electric lap record on Circuit Zandvoort with driver and also team member Kevin Schreiber behind the wheel. With a lap time of 2:04.519 the Forze VI has beaten the Tesla Roadster, which was the previous electric lap record holder on the famous Dutch race track. On 4 June 2017 Forze lost the record to InMotion.

All members of the team are both bachelor and master TU Delft students from a wide range of faculties, including aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. The size of the team has grown over the years and has varied from forty to sixty students in the last few years. As of October 2020, the 14th team consists of 25 full-time members and is backed by nearly 25 part-timers.

As a foundation Forze is completely dependent on its sponsors. Sponsors provide the team with software, materials, equipment or financial support. As of March 2024, Shell is the main sponsor of Forze.^[4] A list of sponsors of the team can be found on the website of Forze.^[5]