Forze

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 Norschleife. 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 TU Delft students, from the first year up to final year students and come 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 2019, the 13th board consists of 22 full-time members and is backed by nearly 25 part-timers.

Drivers

During the third season a new team member with karting experience became the third driver for the team. The driver, Charlie van der Schoor, was also more closely involved with the development of the Forze III. In season 4 the team said farewell to Martin Buitelaar as a driver. He was no longer a student and took on a full-time job outside the racing industry. For season 4 the team raced in the Formula Student (UK) competition and therefore needed more drivers to be able to compete in all the events. A selection among the team members was organised by Buitelaar where Marco van't Wout, Arie Nap and Lennert van den Boom were selected. For the 6th season only licensed race car drivers were allowed due to the increased performance of the car.

Forze Team at Gamma Racing Days 2017

Driver	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018	2018-2019	2019-2020
1	Martin Buitelaar	Martin Buitelaar	Andrew Hagens	Andrew Hagens	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber	Kevin Schreiber
2	Andrew Hagens	Andrew Hagens	Marco van't Wout	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot	Jan Bot
3		Charlie van der Schoor	Charlie van der Schoor	Charlie van der Schoor		Leo van der Eijk	Leo van der Eijk	Leo van der Eijk	Leo van der Eijk	Leo van der Eijk	Leo van der Eijk	Leo van der Eijk
4			Arie Nap	Arie Nap
5				Kevin Schreiber

As a foundation Forze is completely dependent on her sponsors. Sponsors provide the team with software, materials, equipment or financial support. As of January 2018 BWT is the main sponsor of Forze. A list of sponsors of the team can be found on the website of Forze:

• Forze Delft - Homepage
• Formula Zero Greenchoice Forze page
• Official Website
• Hydrogen-powered cars meet in championship race
• Green tech in 'Formula Zero' race