Is hydrogen the answer to green racing – from F1 to off-road?

Electric racing

Extreme E is set to run its first hydrogen-powered car in a number of weeks – will its switch encourage other championships to do the same?

Hamilton X44 team Extreme E Hyrdro XPrix

Hydrogen is looking to be a way forward for Extreme E

Extreme E

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James Elson

When Formula E launched in 2014, it set the standard for electric racing: lithium-ion battery-powered cars that, with huge tech advances, can now race at average speeds of 70mph for 45-minute races.

It’s a model that’s been pursued by other series: from the hybrid tech in F1, rally and BTCC to fully electric Extreme E and world rallycross cars. But could electric racing be about to shift in a different direction?

Later this year, car production is due to begin for the first hydrogen-fuelled racing series in the world, introducing an alternative form of green motor sport to the international stage.

Offering the prospect of lighter vehicles, fast refuelling, and even on-site fuel generation, the Extreme H championship is backed by some of racing’s biggest wallets. There’s even talk of the fuel making its way into F1.

Jenson Button JBXE team Extreme E Hyrdro XPrix

Series backers would like to position Extreme E as a hydrogen platform

Extreme E

The Extreme H cars will use onboard fuel cells which convert hydrogen to water, releasing electrical energy to power the vehicles. They’ll race wheel-to-wheel on the same rallycross-style courses as Extreme E in short action-packed bursts.

In doing so, they could point to the future of zero-emissions racing. Despite a decade of development, battery-powered racing cars are still struggling to overcome significant obstacles.

Increasing light is being shed on the devastating environmental impact of mining battery materials, and its range limitations remain: the technology is still confined to shorter races, with grand prix distances out of reach, let alone endurance events and rally-raids.

Mid-race fast charging was mooted for Formula E this year, but was first delayed and then completely abandoned for the season, due to supply issue.

For some leading figures in motor sport, such as WRC champion/Prodrive team owner David Richards and Formula E/Extreme E founder Alejandro Agag, the future is very much hydrogen.

2 Hamilton X44 team Extreme E Hyrdro XPrix

First Extreme E prototype will be fun in a few weeks

Extreme E

Agag who, after founding Formula E, went on to develop Extreme E and is now behind the Extreme H project, says that there is strong demand and financing for a hydrogen racing series that can showcase and develop the technology.

“There’s a whole ecosystem of hydrogen [power] that lacks a platform,” he says. “What I like about the hydrogen challenge is that it hasn’t been done and there’s so many things to learn as we go.

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“If you’re the only platform, that’s interesting from the business point of view, and from [car companies’] point of view, because you what you develop here, they can use it and you learn.

“There’s a lot of merit to be the first and only one.”

Agag confirmed that the first hydrogen-powered prototype will be run in June with the cars going fully into production in October – but the championship hasn’t decided whether it will run both electric and hydrogen cars together in corresponding races at the same events, or move completely towards hydrogen.

Saudi backing for hydrogen racing series

With the Extreme E championship now basing its opening round at the mooted Saudi Arabian tech city site of Neom, and the Kingdom heavily backing the series through its Enowa utilities company, the country is apparently particularly keen for Agag’s competition to switch from electric batteries to hydrogen.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud has gone on record as saying that the country aims to become the top international supplier of hydrogen.

Extreme E Alejandro Agag picture

Agag is convinced of the business opportunities hydrogen presents as well as the environmental message

Extreme E

“We want to showcase ourselves as an energy exporting country, because we will be working hard in exporting hydrogen along with oil, along with liquid gases,” he said to Reuters last year.

Agag concedes that the Saudi support is key in the push.

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“For me to be able to tap into the sponsorship of all these companies that are betting on hydrogen is one of the reasons why we want to do it, because it has to be also business,” he says.

“I think with hydrogen we have a unique opportunity to offer a platform to all these sponsors that don’t have anywhere to go.”

Agag confirmed that the new Extreme H cars will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells which produce electricity, as opposed to using hydrogen to fuel a combustion engine. The series founder says that Spark, the company producing the prototype and in which he has shares, is researching the latter but that it is still in its infancy.

Hydrogen-powered F1 cars?

It’s not just in the world of Extreme H or rally raid – as detailed below – where hydrogen is under the spotlight. Formula 1’s new 2026 technical regulations still retain the hybrid element but will use synthetic fuels produced from carbon capture.

Beyond the next set of regulations, however, there is the propect of much more radical change. Recently departed sporting director Ross Brawn said in 2021 that hydrogen powered combustion engines could well be where F1’s future lies.

“Maybe hydrogen is the route that Formula 1 can have where we keep the noise, we keep the emotion but we move into a different solution,” Brawn said to the BBC, also emphasising that going electric was not of interest to F1, partly due to the difficulties in sustaining current range and performance numbers, and an absence of race atmosphere caused by the quiet electric engines.

Alpine Australia 2023

F1 could push on to hydrogen in the future – championships like Extreme E could prove its viability

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The Alpine GP team has also begun researching the use of hydrogen, in line with Brawn’s arguments.

“To us, it’s kind of like a good way to kill a lot of birds with one stone. It’s cleaner, for sure,” said Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi last year. “It’s not fully clean, granted, but it’s much more improved compared to traditional fuel.

“It’s abundant, whereas organic or synthetic fuel can be limited in terms of supply and or cost of producing.

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“Plus it preserves one thing, which is the noise. Okay perhaps in like 20 years people will forget about that, because the new generations couldn’t care less and they’ll be used to cars being silent in the street, but at the moment, this is what makes that show as well.”

Hydrogen Dakar entry still in development

Last year at the gruelling Dakar rally, industrial vehicle manufacturer Gaussin entered its own hydrogen-powered truck for certain stages of the event in the experimental category.

Though an impressive feat, the fuel cell-based vehicle couldn’t complete all stages due to the lack of infrastructure to refuel, though the KH-7 Epsilon team did manage to complete the Dakar this year with a hydrogen truck.

Also competing was GCK Guerlain Chicherit, using a customer Prodrive Hunter prototype in the top class.

As well as being involved in helping the Dakar bivouac become totally powered by green energy for next year, GCK announced in 2020 it would enter a hydrogen powered car for 2023, which ultimately didn’t come to fruition – both examples above showing there is still someway to go in making hydrogen viable for medium-to-long distance competition.

Chicherit ran in the biofuel-powered Hunter instead, with Prodrive saying the rally “should help the French outfit clock up the experience they need to achieve their ultimate aim of winning the gruelling race with a hydrogen-powered car.”

Prodrive chairman David Richards, who was also present at the Extreme E Hydro Xprix event as chairman of Motorsport UK, said his massively successful racing outfit is also pushing ahead with hydrogen research. It looks likely this will involve GCK.

Prodrive rally driver Sébastien Loeb at the 2022 Dakar Rally

Prodrive currently runs biofuel, and is now researching hydrogen

“It’s very important that motor sport embraces new technologies, and looks towards the future and whilst Extreme E is in its infancy, it’s an important aspect of it,” he said.

“We’re going to have to be more and more conscious of our environmental credentials as time goes on and Extreme E has got a place to play in that.

“We should be agnostic to technology in this respect, we should be pioneering lots of new ideas. We should use motor sport, to embrace them and to demonstrate technology to the public at large. And we shouldn’t just think there is one solution to all the mobility and transport problems in the future.

“We’re focused on a number of projects at the moment but hydrogen is one of them – in a sporting capacity.”

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