Chris Forsberg: Formula Drift Champion, Team Owner and Builder

Chris Forsberg is an American Formula Drift driver from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He drives a Nissan Z for Forsberg Racing, a team he owns and runs as shop manager. He has competed in every round of Formula Drift since 2004, won three championships, and holds the series records for head-to-head battle wins and podium finishes.

Who is Chris Forsberg?

Forsberg is a driver, team owner and builder, and his career has been tied closely to the cars he builds. He won the Best Drifting Style award at the close of the 2020 season, while James Caldwell, from his own team, was named crew chief of the year, both awards voted on by the teams.

His record makes him the all-time podium finisher in Formula Drift, and he has the most consecutive podiums in the series, six. He has also won the most head-to-head battles in the series' history.

Three Formula Drift titles, a record podium count and a car built by the team that drives it.

How did Forsberg start drifting?

As a teenager Forsberg learned to work on cars with a black 1988 Mazda RX-7 FC. He names Tony Angelo, the Initial D anime, Option Magazine and his brother Erik as the people and media that first pointed him toward the RX-7 and drifting.

In the winter of 2003 he held a drift event at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in New Jersey. By March of that year, Mike Napp, then the facility's president, had given him permission to organise motorsport events there. Those early events gave him his first experience of running motorsport, a role he would later take on as a team owner.

Forsberg bought the RX-7 in March 2000 when he was 17, hoping to learn to drift, and he entered it at the first Club Loose events at Englishtown Raceway Park. The car has changed hands four times since. In 2009 he bought it back from Lindsay Ross and spent ten years restoring it, with a goal of a 250 hp naturally aspirated weekend car.

When did Forsberg's professional career begin?

Forsberg's professional career began in 2004, when he placed second at the inaugural Formula Drift event at Road Atlanta. He followed it with a podium at the second round in Houston and finished third overall in the series.

He drove a 350Z with an SR20DET engine for part of that first season, and he switched to a borrowed Nissan Silvia S13 for one race when the car had technical difficulties. After the Irwindale round he beat the Japanese driver Kazuhiro Tanaka in a D1 event, becoming the first American driver to do so.

In 2005 he drove for Team Falken in a Silvia S15. He won his first Formula Drift event at Round 6 in Irwindale, after a finals battle with Rhys Millen that Super Street described in vivid detail.

How many Formula Drift titles has Forsberg won?

Forsberg has won three Formula Drift championships, in 2009, 2014 and 2016. In 2016 he led the standings from round six at Seattle and defended the lead until the final round at Irwindale, after two third-place and four second-place finishes earlier in the year. He also won the Triple Crown bonus prize in 2007 and again in 2009, and his 2009 season made him the first driver to win both the Triple Crown bonus and the title in one year.

His 2009 title also broke new ground. Earlier champions had all come from professional motorsport, while he was the first champion whose background was purely in drifting and enthusiast events.

The 2014 title came with the team holding points position from the first round to the last, and it was the team's second championship. The 2016 season saw him crowned Formula Drift champion and then Formula Drift World Champion, after an event in Okayama, Japan, made him eligible to score World Championship points.

What was Forsberg's season-by-season record?

Forsberg's results show a long run of top finishes, with the team usually among the leaders. The table below summarises the main championship placings across his career.

The 2006 season was hard going. The convertible 350Z was not competitive, and Forsberg used his backup SR20DET car for a few rounds while he sorted out the V8 and its chassis.

The 2017 season was marked by repeated engine problems and a return to the backup car. The team then committed to the Nissan VR38DETT in 2019, after two years of struggling with the VQ platform, and the new engine proved reliable.

How did the 2009 title season go?

The 2009 season was a breakthrough. The team had been funded by NOS Energy Drink since 2008, and that season Forsberg won the championship and the Triple Crown bonus, plus the Driver of the Year award. He also qualified first at Round 1 in Long Beach and took first place at Round 2 in Atlanta.

Forsberg also won the team drift event at Long Beach, and he took the Round 5 win in Seattle. The team's cars continued to change through the years, but the 2009 season was the high point of his early career.

How did the team's cars change over time?

In 2010 the team fitted an upgraded Nissan Motorsports engine, which added 200 hp, as the series brought in more V8s and more power. In 2011 Forsberg moved to a 370Z with a Nissan Motorsports engine, and the car was built with a focus on reliability.

Forsberg moved to Maryland in 2012, where MA Motorsports prepared his cars, and the focus was on weight reduction and engine reliability. In 2014 the team expanded to two cars, with Jhonnattan Castro taking the second seat, and the lead car gained 150 hp with nitrous.

In 2017 he moved back to California and Nameless Performance took over race team management and vehicle preparation. Forsberg then took control of the race team in 2018 and rebuilt the car with his team in southern California.

How did the team grow from 2007?

In 2007 Forsberg ran his own team for the first time and acted as team manager. He worked with Maxxis tyres on a shoestring budget, and the season became a breakout year fuelled by contingency money. Because of its success, Maxxis matched the series' winnings, and the team finished second overall.

That result paved the way for NOS Energy Drink, which committed to a full title sponsorship in 2008. The team opened that year with a win at Long Beach, and Forsberg finished fifth overall in the series and sixth at the World Finals. He was also nominated as Team Owner of the Year.

The team's results stayed strong in the following seasons, with a third-place finish in 2011, when he was named Formula Drift Team Manager of the Year. In 2015 the team ran the first half of the season without major financial support, yet it still recorded its third consecutive year of top-three championship finishes.

What special project cars has Forsberg built?

His special projects range from show cars to demonstration cars. Many were built for sponsors, exhibitions or video series rather than for competition. A 1975 Datsun 280Z called Gold Leader was bought in 2014 for $4,000 and built with RAD Industries, with a 500 hp RB25DET engine and custom wheels. It won the SuperStreet and Meguiar's Best in Show award at SEMA in 2016.

A 2006 Infiniti M56 called La Flama Blanca was built in 2010 as a four-seat demo car, with a 500 hp VK56DE V8 and a roll cage that held all four bucket seats. A 2016 Chevrolet Silverado was built for Valvoline with NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, and its later sweepstakes winner received the truck.

Other builds include a 2011 Toyota NASCAR with a 2JZ-GTE engine making 750 to 800 horsepower, which was built for the Good Enough! YouTube series, and a 2009 Nissan 370Z twin turbo built for the Drift Garage series. The 1988 RX-7 was rebuilt by Forsberg over ten years.

What roles did Forsberg take outside driving?

Forsberg has also worked as a judge and a television presence. He judged the 2007 Drift Mania Canadian Championship series and the Xtreme Drift Circuit championship series in 2010 and 2011, and he hosted the Drift Garage YouTube series with Ryan Tuerck. The series was produced by Network A.

Motor Trend's 2019 web series, Drift This, also featured Forsberg and Tuerck. The premise was to take improbable drift car candidates and modify them with creative engineering, custom fabrication and pure brute horsepower.

What other events has Forsberg competed in?

Outside Formula Drift he has competed in the D1 China series, where he finished third overall with a BMW M4 2JZ in 2018 and 2019, and in the 2012 China World Drift Series Team Drift event, which he won. He was invited to run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2017.

He also entered the 2016 SCORE Baja 1000, which he did not finish, and the 2021 Gridlife Touring Cup with Bryan Heitkotter in a Nissan 370z. His team has also run two entries in the eSports World Championships using Assetto Corsa Competizione.