The team's roots lay in a 1986 connection between Akagi and Ivan Capelli. After Akagi's driver Akira Hagiwara died in a test accident, Akagi met Capelli's manager Cesare Gariboldi at an F3000 race in Imola and agreed to sponsor Capelli's European campaign. Capelli won the 1986 International Formula 3000 Championship title under Leyton House colours. When Capelli and Gariboldi approached Akagi about moving to Formula One, Akagi committed four million US dollars to place Capelli at March Engineering for 1987, with the car painted in the team's distinctive cyan livery.
The March 871 was introduced from the San Marino Grand Prix onward in 1987, and Capelli scored the team's first championship point at Monaco. Mauricio Gugelmin joined for 1988, and designer Adrian Newey produced the March 881, a breakthrough car whose ultra-slim monocoque and aerodynamic package were widely copied by rivals the following season. The 881 scored 22 points in 1988, including a second place at the Portuguese Grand Prix, and it became the first normally-aspirated car to genuinely lead a race since 1983 when Capelli briefly headed the Japanese Grand Prix field.
In May 1989 Akagi purchased the F1 team outright from the publicly-owned March company. The chassis prefix was changed to CG in memory of Cesare Gariboldi, who had died in a road accident in January. The March CG891 introduced midseason struggled with reliability, particularly gearbox failures traced to a flexing inboard gear-cluster casing.
For 1990 the team was officially rebranded Leyton House Racing. Newey designed the CG901, again with Judd V8 power. A flawed wind tunnel at Southampton produced misleading aerodynamic data, and the car struggled badly in the opening phase of the season: both Capelli and Gugelmin failed to qualify in Brazil and Mexico, and Gugelmin also missed Monaco and Canada.
Newey identified corrections and made changes before being dismissed, but those modifications transformed the car's performance at the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard. Capelli and Gugelmin qualified seventh and tenth and then ran first and second for much of the race on a no-stop tyre strategy. Gugelmin retired with an engine failure, but Capelli led Alain Prost's Ferrari until a misfire three laps from home forced him to yield. Second place was nonetheless a celebrated result. Subsequent races showed continued improvement: Capelli ran third in Britain before a fuel pipe failure, and Gugelmin scored a point for sixth in Belgium. Capelli's six points gave him equal tenth in the Drivers' Championship; the team finished sixth in the Constructors' standings after Larrousse was disqualified.
Gustav Brunner replaced Newey as technical director and designed the CG911 with Chris Murphy, powered by a new Ilmor V10. Early season results mirrored the previous year's pattern of persistent retirements, though Capelli ran in the top six on several occasions. A reliable drive in Hungary gave Capelli a point for sixth, and Gugelmin finished the final five races, recording seventh places in Portugal and Spain.
Off-track events overtook the team in September 1991 when Akagi was arrested in connection with a financial scandal involving his company Marusho Kosan and the Fuji Bank. With funding collapsing and two races remaining, Capelli stood aside to allow Karl Wendlinger to take his seat. The team finished twelfth in the Constructors' Championship.
A consortium including Ken Marrable, Brunner, lawyer John Byfield and Dutch businessman Henny Vollenberg purchased the team. For 1992 it reverted to the March name, partly to distance itself from the Akagi scandal. Wendlinger stayed on and finished fourth in Canada. Financial difficulties persisted; Belmondo was eventually replaced by Emanuele Naspetti and Wendlinger by Jan Lammers. Attempts to secure funding for 1993 failed, and the team folded in early 1993.
Akira Akagi died on 8 August 2018.
Leyton House Racing occupies a distinctive place in Formula One history as a team that fielded genuinely innovative machinery through Adrian Newey's design work, yet was ultimately undone by financial mismanagement and the criminal prosecution of its owner. The aerodynamic ideas developed in the March 881 influenced chassis design across the grid, and Ivan Capelli's near-win at Paul Ricard in 1990 remains one of the most dramatic runs of the era.