Forti established itself through Italian and European Formula Three, becoming a consistent winner with several notable drivers passing through its ranks. Franco Forini, Enrico Bertaggia, Emanuele Naspetti, and Gianni Morbidelli each won Italian Formula Three titles for the team in 1985, 1987, 1988, and 1989 respectively. Bertaggia also took victory at the prestigious Macau Grand Prix and the Monaco F3 support race in 1988, while Morbidelli won the FIA European Formula Three Cup in 1989.
From 1987, Forti competed in International Formula 3000, initially with the then-untested Dallara 3087 chassis. After several years building experience, the team found its stride by 1990 when Morbidelli scored its first F3000 victory. Forti went on to accumulate nine wins and five pole positions in the category. In 1991, Naspetti finished third in the Drivers' Championship. By 1994, Forti was the most experienced team in the championship, running Hideki Noda and wealthy Brazilian driver Pedro Diniz, whose backing would prove the bridge to Formula One.
Guido Forti had been planning the jump to F1 since 1991, studying recent cautionary tales such as Coloni and Onyx while taking inspiration from Eddie Jordan's impressive 1991 debut. Financial stability was his prerequisite. By late 1992, he had secured a deal with Pedro Diniz, whose family connections to the large Brazilian retail group Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição and the Pão de Açúcar supermarket chain enabled sponsorship agreements with brands including Arisco, Duracell, Gillette, Kaiser, Marlboro, Parmalat, and Sadia. Italian-Brazilian businessman Carlo Gancia later joined as co-owner and helped underwrite a claimed first-year F1 budget of around $17 million, with a three-year deal structured around the Diniz family's financial involvement.
Forti's first Formula One car, the FG01, was widely criticised as overweight, outdated, and aerodynamically poor — variously described as "a revised F3000 car" and "a fearful pile of junk." It drew on the design lineage of the defunct Fondmetal GR02, with input from design consultant Sergio Rinland and aerodynamicist Hans Fouche. Power came from a Ford-Cosworth ED V8 customer engine, developing an estimated 100 bhp less than the leading Renault V10 units. The FG01 was also the only car with a manual gearbox on the 1995 grid. Its yellow-and-blue livery with fluorescent green wheels was chosen as a tribute to Ayrton Senna, replicating the shades of his helmet.
Pedro Diniz drove as number one, joined by compatriot Roberto Moreno. The team finished well behind even the other backmarkers — Pacific, Simtek, and Minardi — throughout much of the year. Early-season finishes in Brazil and Argentina saw both drivers lapped multiple times and classified outside the 90 per cent race-distance threshold. Development during the season, including a 60-kilogram weight reduction, a new semi-automatic gearbox, and revised aerodynamics, brought gradual improvement. Simtek's mid-season collapse and Pacific's decline helped Forti's relative position, and at the season-closing Australian Grand Prix, Diniz finished seventh — one place outside the points — while Moreno qualified within the 107 per cent cut for the first time. The team finished a de facto eleventh in the Constructors' Championship.
With Diniz contracted for two further seasons, 1996 appeared more promising. Forti negotiated for the more powerful Ford Zetec-R V8 engine and signed Luca Badoer and Andrea Montermini. However, Diniz broke the deal to join Ligier, taking his family's sponsors — Parmalat and Marlboro among them — and devastating the team's budget. The 1996 season began with the older FG01B, and both drivers failed to qualify for the opening race in Australia.
A new chassis, the FG03, arrived for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola and was judged a significant improvement by both drivers, with greater aerodynamic downforce and better handling. Badoer qualified comfortably within the 107 per cent cut and finished tenth. However, financial problems were accelerating. Before the Spanish Grand Prix, a deal was announced for a mysterious entity called Shannon Racing to purchase a 51 per cent stake in the team. Shannon, part of an Irish-registered Milanese financial group, had teams in lower formulae and sought an entry into F1.
After the Monaco Grand Prix, both cars retired in France reportedly due to exhausted engine mileage as Forti fell into arrears with Cosworth. At the British Grand Prix the cars completed only a handful of laps, and at the German Grand Prix both remained unassembled in the pit garage after the engine supply was cut entirely.
Guido Forti alleged Shannon Racing had not paid within the stipulated six-day deadline and refuted their ownership claim. He filed suit in the Italian courts, and with the ownership dispute unresolved and the team missing successive Grands Prix, Forti did not return to the 1996 championship. By the time Shannon won the court case in September, the team had ceased to exist.
In a bitterly ironic postscript, Forti had signed the 1997 Concorde Agreement shortly before the collapse, which would have entitled the team to increased television revenue — funding that might have allowed survival into a third season.
Forti is remembered as one of the last genuine privateer teams to contest Formula One before the era of major manufacturer involvement. Alongside Pacific and Simtek, it represents a generation of small, ambitious outfits undone by the escalating cost of competition. The consensus among observers was that the combination of the FG03 chassis with the 1995 budget level might have yielded points; the Diniz departure made that impossible. The FG03 chassis has since appeared at F1-themed track days at circuits including Rockingham in the United Kingdom.