Although Ford-powered cars appeared sporadically in Formula One between 1963 and 1966, the company's meaningful involvement began in 1967 through a partnership with the specialist British engine builder Cosworth. Ford provided funding for Cosworth to develop the Ford-Cosworth DFV — a 3.0-litre V8 engine that debuted at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix with the Lotus team and Jim Clark at the wheel. The DFV won on its first race appearance.
Graham Hill won the 1968 Drivers' Championship in a Lotus-Ford, and the team claimed the Constructors' title the same year. The DFV went on to become the defining engine of an era: powerful, reliable, compact, and relatively affordable. It was eventually made available to customer teams, and through the late 1960s, 1970s, and into the early 1980s, the majority of Formula One constructors ran Ford-Cosworth power. Between 1967 and 1983, the DFV won 155 Grands Prix, 12 Drivers' Championships, and 10 Constructors' Championships. Teams including Lotus, Matra, Tyrrell, McLaren, Williams, and Brabham all secured titles with it.
As turbocharged engines became prevalent in the 1980s, Cosworth developed Ford-badged turbocharged units including the GBA, though these achieved limited success against the dominant Renault, Honda, BMW, and Ferrari turbo programs. When turbocharged engines were banned after 1988, Ford continued supplying naturally aspirated Cosworth engines to teams including Benetton, McLaren, Jordan, and Tyrrell.
Ford's sole World Championship success in this period came in 1994, when Michael Schumacher won the Drivers' Championship with Benetton-Ford.
Between 1997 and 1999, Ford provided works support for the newly formed Stewart Grand Prix team, founded by triple Formula One World Champion Jackie Stewart and his son Paul. The team achieved its single race victory at the 1999 European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, with Johnny Herbert. Ford purchased Cosworth's race engine division outright in 1998 to deepen its technical control.
Ford acquired Stewart Grand Prix in 2000 and rebranded it as Jaguar Racing to promote the Ford-owned Jaguar brand in Formula One. Over five seasons, Jaguar Racing never won a race, managing two podium finishes and a best Constructors' Championship result of seventh place. Ford sold both Jaguar and Cosworth at the end of 2004 and withdrew from Formula One.
During the early 2000s, Ford-Cosworth engines were also used by customer teams. Jordan scored a race victory at the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix with a Ford-powered car.
Ford announced in February 2023 that it would return to Formula One in 2026 through a partnership with Red Bull Powertrains, supplying power units to both Red Bull Racing and their second team Racing Bulls. The return coincides with new regulations focused on increased electrification and the use of sustainable fuels, areas Ford identified as relevant to its broader automotive strategy.
Ford's Formula One record — accumulated primarily through the Cosworth DFV during the engine's dominant years from the late 1960s through the early 1980s — places the company among the most successful engine suppliers in the sport's history. The DFV's combination of performance and accessibility transformed the constructor landscape of the era, enabling privateer teams to compete at the front of the field in a way that had not been possible with exclusive factory engine arrangements. Ford's approach of funding specialist partners rather than manufacturing engines in-house proved commercially effective, though the Jaguar Racing period demonstrated the limits of that approach when extended to full team ownership.