Most of the time we keep on hearing manufacturers trying to top the lap record at the Nurburgring, whether it is for the FWD or even for production cars. But since this is the Green Hell we are talking about, a group was determined to create a new lap record around the Nordschleife and at the same time doing it in the greenest manner.
The group in mention here consists of over 50 students from the Dutch Tu Delft University of Technology and using a Lotus 7 type frame, they had managed to create the Forze IV. Their creation here is powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which means that it uses hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity that propels the car.
With two tanks carrying 3kg of hydrogen on board stored at 350 bars of pressure, the car has 258 horses in its disposal. Zerotohundred only takes less than 4 seconds and has a top speed of 210km/h. The stored hydrogen can keep the car running for 30 minutes at full power and the tanks only take 3 minutes to refill.
Putting former Formula 1 driver Jan Lammers behind the wheel, he managed to negotiate all the 73 corners of the 21-kilometer circuit without any trouble, clocking a lap time of less than 11 minutes. While this current record for hydrogen-powered cars might not sound that impressive compared to its combustion engine brethren, we are pretty sure that technology will soon catch up and one day hydrogen powered cars might just be able to compete against the petrol powered cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=21&v=7ZjbfZvXm2c
