Dome Co. Ltd had a long history of ambition in international prototype racing, and the S101 represented the company's serious push into the top tier of sportscar competition under the LMP1 regulations of the early 2000s. The car competed in the FIA Sportscar Championship, a series that attracted the leading prototype constructors of the era, and established Dome as a constructor capable of winning championships outright.
The S101 was the base platform from which Dome developed several evolutionary variants over half a decade of competition.
The S101 Hb was introduced around 2005 and underwent testing at the Circuit Paul Ricard ahead of the Le Mans Series Prologue. The Hb designation referred to a hybrid configuration that placed Dome at the leading edge of LMP1 technical development at the time.
When new ACO regulations for the 2007 season barred hybrid-configured LMP1 cars from ACO-sanctioned events, Dome was forced to respond. To manage costs, the team retained the lower half of the S101 Hb monocoque and fitted a new double roll hoop assembly in place of the single roll hoop and air intake that had been used previously. The resulting car was designated the S101.5 and allowed Dome to continue competing under the revised ruleset without a complete redesign.
The S101 made its racing debut at the 2001 Barcelona 2 Hours and 30 Minutes, the opening round of the 2001 FIA Sportscar Championship, entered by the Den Blå Avis racing team. A second car joined the championship, run by Racing for Holland.
The car achieved its inaugural win at the Mistrovství FIA Sportnovních Vozu, held at the Brno Circuit in the Czech Republic during its debut season.
Racing for Holland re-entered their Dome chassis in the 2002 FIA Sportscar Championship, securing first in the Teams Championship. Dome simultaneously won the 2002 FIA Sportscar Constructors Championship — a significant achievement for a Japanese constructor competing at the top level of European sportscar racing.
Racing for Holland returned again in 2003 and successfully defended the title, winning the FIA Sportscar Championship for a second consecutive year. Successive championship victories confirmed the S101's competitiveness across a sustained campaign and established Dome as a genuine force in LMP1 construction.
The S101 also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans across multiple years, the race for which it was originally designed.
The Dome S101 represented the high point of Dome's involvement in LMP1-class endurance racing during the early 2000s and validated the company's engineering capabilities on the international stage. Its successive championship victories with Racing for Holland made it one of the more successful non-European LMP1 constructors of the era. The platform's development into the Hb, Hbi, and S101.5 variants demonstrated Dome's commitment to keeping the architecture competitive across a rapidly evolving regulatory environment. The S101 lineage paved the way for the S102 and, later, the Strakka-Dome S103, sustaining Dome's presence in prototype racing for years after the original car's introduction.