The FIA Formula 4 framework was announced by Gerhard Berger and the FIA Single Seater Commission in March 2013, with the stated aim of making the pathway to Formula One more cost-effective and legible. The regulations capped a car's purchase price at €30,000 and limited a full season's expenditure to €100,000, significantly reducing barriers for teams and drivers compared to the Formula Three programmes that had previously dominated junior single-seater racing. The ADAC championship was formally announced on 16 July 2014 and was classified as a second-phase FIA F4 series, entering service after the Italian F4 Championship and Formula 4 Sudamericana, which had both started in 2014.
The ADAC had previously run the ADAC Formel Masters from 2008 to 2014, a category that produced several drivers who reached Formula One and other senior categories. ADAC Formula 4 was designed to build on that legacy while operating within the standardised FIA framework.
All cars in the championship were built by Italian constructor Tatuus, which was contracted to design and manufacture the entire grid's machinery. The car used a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis and was powered by a 1.4-litre turbocharged Abarth engine, the same unit used in the Italian F4 Championship, creating a degree of technical commonality across national championships and simplifying knowledge transfer for drivers and engineers moving between series.
The inaugural ADAC Formula 4 season ran in 2015, and the championship quickly established itself as a high-profile entry point to European single-seater racing, partly through its association with DTM events, which provided large crowds and television exposure. Over the following seasons the series attracted talented young drivers from across Europe, several of whom progressed to Formula Three, Formula Two, and eventually Formula One.
The championship encountered financial and sporting challenges towards the end of its life. The 2022 season was notably understaffed, with only eleven drivers registered for the final race at the Nürburgring, a sharp contrast to the fields the series had attracted in earlier years. Simultaneously, the ADAC was in the process of taking over the DTM organisation — a transfer completed on 2 December 2022 — which prompted speculation about a restructuring of the club's motorsport portfolio. On 3 December 2022, the ADAC announced that ADAC Formula 4 would not continue into the 2023 season. The stated reasons were the high costs compared to other national Formula 4 championships and the insufficient number of drivers to sustain a viable grid. The contrast with the Italian F4 Championship's final round, which started 41 drivers in the same period, illustrated the competitive difficulty the German series had faced.
During its eight seasons the ADAC Formula 4 championship developed a number of drivers who reached senior international categories. Its position on DTM support bills gave graduates early experience of professional German motorsport infrastructure, and the sealed Tatuus-Abarth specification ensured that raw driving talent was the primary differentiator between competitors. The series' closure in 2022 reflected broader pressures on national Formula 4 championships in the European market, where several regional series competed for the same pool of young drivers and budgets.