Ford's motorsport history traces to 10 October 1901, when Henry Ford raced his Sweepstakes car against the well-regarded Alexander Winton at the Detroit Driving Club in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Winton was considered the overwhelming favourite, with his business manager selecting a trophy in advance of the expected victory; Ford's win instead served as a founding proof of concept for the lightweight, durable, and simple automobile philosophy that would define his subsequent road car production. In 1903, Barney Oldfield drove a Ford 999 to 60 mph on a one-mile dirt track at the Indiana Fairgrounds, the fastest closed-course lap recorded to that point. A Ford Model T won the 1909 New York to Seattle transcontinental race.
Ford engines became central to open-wheel racing during the 1960s. Jim Clark won Ford's first Indianapolis 500 in 1965, with NASCAR's Wood Brothers serving as his pit crew. That same year Fred Lorenzen won the Daytona 500 in a Holman-Moody Ford, and Mario Andretti became the first Ford-powered driver to win the American open-wheel national championship. In Formula One, Ford entered the record books at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix with the Cosworth DFV engine, and Ford-powered cars have accumulated 176 Formula One race victories, 10 manufacturers' titles, and 13 drivers' championships. Michael Schumacher's first drivers' world championship in 1994 was won with a Ford-powered Benetton.
Ford's NASCAR record stands at 728 victories, 17 manufacturers' titles, and 11 drivers' championships. The programme began with Jim Roper winning the first NASCAR Grand National race in a Lincoln in Charlotte in 1949, and Jimmy Florian winning Ford's first NASCAR race in a Ford-branded car at Dayton Speedway in 1950. The division achieved its 1,000th NASCAR win in 2013.
Ford's World Rally Championship involvement included the Ford Escort WRC (from 1997), the Ford Focus RS WRC (from 1999), the Ford Fiesta RS WRC (2011–2016), the Ford Fiesta WRC (2017–2021), and the Ford Puma Rally1 (from 2022). The division's rally efforts have been conducted in partnership with M-Sport, which continues to run the M-Sport World Rally Team carrying Ford branding.
A landmark result came at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the Ford GT finished 1–2 in GTE Pro class and 1–3–4–10 in class overall. This was 50 years after Ford's celebrated Le Mans victories of 1966–1969.
Ford has achieved 415 victories and 6 manufacturers' titles alongside 26 drivers' titles in the Australian V8 Supercars / Supercars Championship, historically one of the brand's strongest international motorsport programmes.
In 2015, Ford merged Ford Racing, Ford Team RS, and the Special Vehicle Team (SVT) into a single entity called Ford Performance. The division was rebranded back to Ford Racing in 2025. In 2023, Ford announced a return to Formula One as an engine manufacturer for the 2026 season, in partnership with Red Bull Powertrains.
The Mustang Car Corrals programme is among the experiential elements operated under the Ford Racing brand, providing fan experiences at select racing events including Le Mans.
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