Kawasaki's road racing heritage predates its MotoGP involvement considerably. The manufacturer's first world championship title came in 1969, when Dave Simmonds won the 125 cc class. Kawasaki then dominated the 250 cc and 350 cc Grand Prix classes from 1978 to 1982, winning four titles in each category. With the introduction of four-stroke engines into MotoGP from the 2002 season, Kawasaki developed a 990 cc machine — the ZX-RR — and raced it in the final three rounds of 2002. The Kawasaki Racing Team was formally constituted for 2003, with the team's operational management in the hands of German 250 cc Grand Prix racer Harald Eckl's organisation.
The team fielded a single bike in 2003 before expanding to two entries in 2004 with Alex Hofmann and Shinya Nakano. Nakano delivered the team's first MotoGP podium finish with third place at the Japanese Grand Prix that year.
In 2007, Kawasaki severed its relationship with Eckl's organisation due to Eckl's involvement with a competing MotoGP operation. In response, Kawasaki established Kawasaki Motors Racing, a European subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries based in the Netherlands and dedicated to managing the MotoGP effort directly. This made the team a fully in-house factory operation for the first time since the return to premier-class racing.
For 2007 the team ran the new 800 cc specification ZX-RR on Bridgestone tyres with Randy de Puniet and Olivier Jacque as riders. Jacque suffered multiple injuries across the season and was replaced by Australian rider Anthony West. The team's best single result of the year was a second-place finish by de Puniet at the rain-affected Japanese Grand Prix.
John Hopkins replaced Jacque for 2008 alongside Anthony West. Results were modest, with the team typically running in the midfield. In August 2008, Kawasaki announced that Marco Melandri would join Hopkins for the following season, suggesting a continued commitment to the programme. However, the onset of the global financial crisis prompted a rapid reassessment, and on 9 January 2009, Kawasaki announced the suspension of its MotoGP racing activities, citing the need to reallocate management resources.
Following negotiations with championship promoter Dorna, Kawasaki provided a scaled-down continuation team for 2009, renamed Hayate Racing Team to reflect the limited factory involvement. Melandri remained as the sole rider on a single bike. The team performed better than anticipated: Melandri posted a sixth and fifth early in the season and finished second at the French Grand Prix, matching Kawasaki's best-ever premier-class result. After the 2009 season the Kawasaki works MotoGP program came to a definitive close.
Following the MotoGP withdrawal, Kawasaki concentrated factory effort on the Superbike World Championship using the ZX-10R road bike as a competitive base, running through Paul Bird Motorsport from 2009 to 2011 and then through Provec Racing from 2012. From 2025, Kawasaki entered into a partnership with Italian chassis specialist Bimota — of which Kawasaki has been a major shareholder since 2019 — to create the "Bimota by Kawasaki Racing" entry in World Superbike, while direct factory Kawasaki Racing Team support transferred to Puccetti Racing.
Kawasaki's MotoGP involvement was brief by the standards of the Japanese manufacturers, and the program never reached the front of the grid. Its significance lies partly in the competitive baseline Kawasaki established in the 250 cc and 350 cc classes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which demonstrated that the manufacturer could operate at the highest level of Grand Prix racing. The modern MotoGP venture served primarily as a technology and branding exercise that ultimately could not be sustained through the economic conditions of 2008–2009. The Hayate team's final result — Melandri's podium in France — provided a fitting send-off to a factory effort that had shown moments of genuine promise without ever fulfilling them.