Lamberto Leoni founded First Racing in 1987, returning to competitive motorsport after his career as a Formula One driver by establishing his own team. The operation was based in Italy and focused on the Formula 3000 series, which served as the primary feeder category to Formula One at the time. Leoni's ambition extended beyond Formula 3000, and he would eventually commission a purpose-built Formula One chassis before financial and engineering setbacks curtailed those plans.
First Racing debuted in Formula 3000 at Silverstone in 1987, entering two cars — one for Leoni himself and another for Gabriele Tarquini. In that opening season, Tarquini proved the more competitive of the pair, reaching the podium twice with a third place at Pergusa and a second at Imola. The team occasionally ran a third car during the year, with Aldo Bertuzzi, Beppe Gabbiani, Claudio Langes, and Alain Ferté sharing those duties at various rounds.
For 1988, Leoni stepped back from driving and moved into a full-time management role. He hired Pierluigi Martini and Marco Apicella to lead the attack, and the pairing proved significantly stronger. Martini scored the team's first outright victory at Pergusa and went on to finish fourth in the championship standings, marking the high point of the team's on-track achievements.
The 1989 season began promisingly when Fabrizio Giovanardi won the second round at Vallelunga. Apicella, retained in the second car, was a consistent points-scorer throughout the year, collecting podium finishes at Pau, Jerez, Birmingham, and Spa and finishing fourth in the final standings. The same driver pairing of Giovanardi and Apicella was confirmed for 1990, but despite regularly scoring points neither driver managed to win a race, leaving the season without a standout result.
By 1991, financial difficulties had set in. Leoni was forced to rely on pay drivers, signing Michael Bartels and Jean-Denis Délétraz, but the car had become uncompetitive. After a succession of poor results the team folded, with Leoni choosing to retire from team operations and focus on managing the career of Apicella.
Encouraged by the competitive results in Formula 3000's first full season, Leoni commissioned designer Richard Divila to build a Formula One car for entry into the 1989 World Championship. The car, designated the First 189, was fitted with a Judd V8 engine and Gabriele Tarquini was signed to drive.
Problems emerged early. Following a demonstration run at the 1989 Attilio Bettega Memorial event in Bologna and the Formula One Indoor Trophy, it became clear that the chassis had been poorly manufactured due to a temperature error during autoclave curing. A second chassis had to be commissioned, but the resulting delay threatened to cost the team a penalty for missing the season's opening races. In an attempt to salvage the situation, Divila and his engineers injected the original chassis with a reinforcing material called Redus 410 NA.
The car passed the mandatory FIA pre-season crash test at Cranfield, but the reinforcement had added significant weight, leaving it well outside competitive parameters. Divila himself described the car as good for little more than being an interesting flowerpot. With the 1989 Formula One World Championship attracting more than forty entries and requiring pre-qualifying sessions, Leoni concluded that fielding such an uncompetitive car was pointless and withdrew the entry before the opening Brazilian Grand Prix.
The second chassis Leoni had commissioned was subsequently purchased by Ernesto Vita and used during the 1990 Formula One season as the basis for the Life L190, giving the First Racing chassis a minor footnote in the history of the period's backmarker constructors.
First Racing occupies a modest but genuine place in the Formula 3000 era, producing a sequence of respectable results and nurturing drivers including Pierluigi Martini, who went on to a sustained Formula One career. The team's Formula One episode, though never reaching the grid, contributed indirectly to the story of the Life F190 through the sale of its spare chassis. Leoni's continued involvement in driver management after the team closed kept him connected to the sport beyond the competitive years.