The team's roots trace to 1988 when Paul Stewart purchased the Gary Evans Motorsport operation and established Paul Stewart Racing. Starting with ten employees in the 1989 British Formula 3 season — with Paul himself driving alongside German driver Otto Rensing — the outfit grew rapidly through the early 1990s, relocating to Milton Keynes and expanding across multiple junior formulae. By the mid-1990s Paul Stewart Racing had accumulated 12 titles and 119 victories across various categories.
Jackie Stewart declined to make the step into Formula 1 through 1995, watching short-lived rivals Simtek, Pacific, and Forti struggle or collapse. He reversed course in January 1996 after securing a five-year development deal with Ford to run as a fully factory-backed team, replacing Ford's previous arrangement as an engine supplier to Sauber. The Malaysian government also came aboard as a sponsor, providing a promotional platform for the country.
The team's first car, the Stewart SF01, was launched on 19 December 1996. Rubens Barrichello and Jan Magnussen drove it at the opening 1997 Australian Grand Prix. The highlight of the year came at a rain-hit Monaco Grand Prix where Barrichello finished second — an impressive result for a new constructor. Elsewhere the SF01 was a consistent midfield runner but plagued by the fragility of its Ford Zetec-R V10 engine, which produced only eight classified finishes across 34 possible starts. The team finished ninth in the Constructors Championship with six points.
Stewart developed the SF02 for 1998 hoping to score regular points and challenge for podiums, but the car proved underdeveloped and uncompetitive. A fifth place for Barrichello in Spain and a double points finish in Canada — Barrichello fifth, Magnussen sixth — were the main positive results. After a poor run of performances, Magnussen was replaced mid-season by Jos Verstappen from the French Grand Prix onward. The team finished eighth in the championship with five points.
After Ford acquired engine manufacturer Cosworth in mid-1998, the team ran a brand-new engine in the Stewart SF3 for 1999. The car was quick from the outset, though both cars overheated on the grid at Melbourne and the engine initially proved fragile, with both entries blowing up in Brazil. Despite those early setbacks the SF3 was consistently competitive across the season, most visibly demonstrated by Barrichello's pole position at the French Grand Prix and by Johnny Herbert's victory at the rain-soaked European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, where attrition among the leading contenders handed Stewart their first and only race win.
Herbert also played an indirect role in the Drivers Championship finale in Malaysia, running third behind the two Ferraris before a late mistake allowed Mika Häkkinen to pass and take vital points in his title fight with Michael Schumacher. The Ferraris were initially disqualified, briefly elevating Stewart results, but were reinstated on appeal; Häkkinen nonetheless secured his second championship at the Japanese Grand Prix, and Stewart ended the season fourth in the Constructors Championship with 36 points.
At the end of 1999, Ford purchased the team outright and rebadged it Jaguar Racing for the 2000 season. Disappointing results over subsequent seasons led Ford to sell the team to energy drink company Red Bull GmbH ahead of the 2005 season, at which point it was renamed Red Bull Racing. The Milton Keynes base Jackie and Paul Stewart had built remained the team's home through Red Bull's dominant championship years in the 2010s and 2020s, meaning the infrastructure Stewart Grand Prix established underpinned some of the most successful seasons in Formula One history.
Stewart Grand Prix demonstrated that a well-resourced new entrant could reach genuine competitiveness within three years of entering Formula One. The team's success in 1999, beating established names including Williams and Benetton in the Constructors standings, validated the model of a manufacturer-backed works partnership with an independent team operator — a structure that the successor Jaguar and Red Bull operations inherited wholesale.