ByKolles Racing was founded in 2000 by Romulus Kolles and his son Colin Kolles as Kolles Racing. The team's early work spanned German Formula 3, the F3 Euro Series, and the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters before shifting into sports car racing with customer Audi prototypes in the Le Mans Series and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Colin Kolles served as director of the Jordan Grand Prix and later the HRT Formula One team, while the racing operation in Greding, Germany continued its endurance programme.
In 2013 the team competed in the FIA World Endurance Championship under a Lotus Cars sponsorship title as Lotus LMP2. When that backing ended in 2014, the team rebranded as ByKolles Racing and unveiled a new LMP1 prototype — the CLM P1/01, built under the chassis designation reflecting the team's collaboration — targeting the non-hybrid LMP1 category that allowed privateer entrants to compete without the enormous cost burden of a hybrid energy-recovery system.
The CLM P1/01 was designed to the LMP1 non-hybrid regulations that the FIA introduced to encourage privateer participation at the top tier. Over the course of its competition life, the car ran a succession of engine configurations. Early seasons used a Nissan Nismo VRX30A 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V6 unit. In February 2019, ByKolles announced a switch to the Gibson GL458, a 4.5-litre naturally aspirated unit developed by Gibson Technology — the Repton, Derbyshire-based company formerly known as Zytek Engineering — which had already proven itself in the Rebellion R13 and the DragonSpeed BR Engineering BR1.
The CLM P1/01 became a fixture at the 24 Hours of Le Mans through the late 2010s, regularly representing the privateer LMP1 contingent against the dominant factory Toyota TS050 Hybrids. The car's consistent presence kept the non-hybrid LMP1 category alive alongside the Rebellion R13. Results were competitive within the privateer class but frequently limited by the performance and reliability gap inherent in facing factory hybrid programmes with substantially larger development budgets.
In 2017, Robert Kubica was announced to return to active racing in the ByKolles car for a WEC season, though he ultimately withdrew before the first race of the 2018–19 campaign. Former Caterham F1 boss Manfredi Ravetto joined the team's management structure in 2018. For the 2019–20 season ByKolles announced it would not contest the full WEC calendar, instead reserving resources to prepare for the incoming Le Mans Hypercar class.
Following the conclusion of its LMP1 programme, ByKolles pivoted to the Le Mans Hypercar regulations. In April 2022 the team revealed the Vanwall Vandervell 680, named in honour of 1950s Vanwall patron Tony Vandervell, and rebranded as the Vanwall Racing Team. The car entered the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship in the Hypercar class. The CLM P1/01 thus served as the bridge between ByKolles Racing's customer prototype origins and its eventual attempt to compete under the successor Hypercar framework that replaced LMP1 at the top of the endurance racing hierarchy.