Campos Racing was founded in 1998 by former Formula One driver Adrián Campos and entered the GP2 Series from its inaugural 2005 season. After the team won the 2008 GP2 Teams' Championship under Campos, he chose to step back from the operation, and Agag — a Spanish businessman with diverse motorsport interests — acquired the team. Agag renamed the outfit Addax after the antelope species, and retained the name of Qatari real estate company Barwa International as title sponsor for the 2009 season.
Addax signed 2008 GP2 Asia Series champion Romain Grosjean and existing Campos driver Vitaly Petrov for its first campaign. Grosjean took the team's inaugural pole position at the opening qualifying session in Barcelona and its first win, leading Petrov home in a 1–2 finish. Both drivers established themselves as championship contenders.
Grosjean's season was interrupted when he was called up to the Renault Formula One team to replace Nelson Piquet Jr. from the European Grand Prix onwards. Despite missing the final eight races, he still finished fourth in the championship with two wins. Petrov — Nico Hülkenberg's main rival for the title — finished runner-up with two wins of his own. Addax won the Teams' Championship in its inaugural season under the new name.
Petrov graduated to Formula One with Renault, and Davide Valsecchi moved to iSport International, so Addax signed Giedo van der Garde and Sergio Pérez. Pérez quickly assumed team leadership, winning five races and emerging as eventual champion Pastor Maldonado's primary rival, while Van der Garde added three podium finishes to finish seventh overall. Addax narrowly missed the Teams' Championship, finishing five points behind Rapax.
Van der Garde remained for 2011, joined by Charles Pic in his second GP2 year. Although neither driver won the championship — Grosjean, now back in the series with DAMS, dominated — Van der Garde compiled consistent podiums in the first half of the season before fading to fifth overall, while Pic delivered three pole positions and two race victories to finish fourth. Despite both drivers finishing outside the top three, Addax won the Teams' Championship by virtue of the combined points advantage over rival teams whose lead drivers were supported by less competitive teammates.
Pic moved to Formula One with Marussia and Van der Garde joined Caterham Racing. Addax signed Johnny Cecotto Jr. and Josef Král. Cecotto made a breakthrough with two Feature Race victories — at Monaco from pole position and at Hockenheim — but his inconsistency limited him to ninth in the drivers' standings. Král endured a prolonged scoreless run and was replaced by Dani Clos for four races mid-season, with rookie Jake Rosenzweig completing the final two rounds. The team dropped to eighth in the Teams' Championship.
Addax inherited Campos Racing's GP2 Asia Series entry alongside the main series. In the 2008–09 Asia season, Petrov and Pérez scored three wins between them, with the team finishing third. For 2009–10, the team's roster included various combinations of its main series drivers alongside Max Chilton, Luiz Razia, and Rodolfo González, restricting it to tenth in the standings. In the final 2011 Asia season, Van der Garde and Pic drove throughout, with Van der Garde taking two podiums to finish third in the drivers' standings.
Addax was among ten teams granted entries for the inaugural 2010 GP3 Series season, one of only two GP2 teams also competing in GP3 alongside ART Grand Prix. The team ran Felipe Guimarães, Pablo Sánchez López, and Mirko Bortolotti, finishing eighth in the teams' standings. For 2011, Addax entered Dominic Storey, Gabriel Chaves, and Dean Smith; Smith was the team's best performer with two podiums. Addax again finished eighth but withdrew from the GP3 Series at the end of the season.
Addax's GP2 tenure from 2009 to 2012 produced three Teams' Championships and helped develop multiple future Formula One drivers including Romain Grosjean, Vitaly Petrov, Sergio Pérez, and Giedo van der Garde. The team represented the continuation of Adrián Campos's original GP2 operation and was a consistent front-running presence across the Agag ownership era.
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