Ma's father owned a car repair shop in Shanghai, and Ma began karting at the age of eight. His family invested heavily in his development, including in a karting track in Quyang. He won the national karting junior championship at the age of twelve. Ma started his professional racing career in the 2005 Asian Formula Renault Challenge before racing in the 2006 Formula Renault 2.0 NEC championship. He competed in the inaugural A1 Grand Prix season for Team China at the Shanghai International Circuit. He went on to race in the 2008 Spanish Formula 3 Championship and the 2009 British Formula 3 Championship, and won the China Touring Car Championship 1600cc class driver's title in 2011.
On 5 April 2012, Ma was added to the HRT F1 driver development programme and made history as the first China-born driver to participate in a Formula One car at an FIA-sanctioned event. He replaced Narain Karthikeyan in the first Friday practice session of the 2012 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and was given three further Friday practice sessions later that season.
Ma had a contract in place to become a full-time HRT driver in 2013, which would have made him the first-ever Chinese Formula One race starter. However, HRT collapsed at the end of the 2012 season, ending that prospect. Ma instead joined Caterham as a Friday test driver while racing for their GP2 team. At the 2013 Chinese Grand Prix, he replaced Charles Pic in the first free practice session, becoming the first Chinese driver to take part in a Grand Prix weekend at his home circuit. He was around 1.5 seconds off his teammate's pace in that session.
Ma made his GP2 Series debut in the 2013 Sepang round for Caterham. He finished 21st in the feature race after suffering extreme dehydration from gastroenteritis and did not start the sprint race. He was subsequently replaced at Caterham by Alexander Rossi.
In 2014, Ma joined Citroën Total WTCC as a fourth-car entry at selected rounds of the World Touring Car Championship. At the Race of Russia, he won the second race — becoming the first Chinese driver to win an FIA World Championship race. He also set the fastest lap at the first Race of China in Shanghai, finishing 13th in the drivers' standings for the year.
Citroën gave Ma a full-time seat in 2015. He won the second round of the Race of Portugal and finished fourth in the drivers' championship, a strong result in one of the most competitive touring car championships at the time. Despite this performance he was not retained by Citroën for the 2016 season.
Ma made his Formula E debut in the 2015–16 season, replacing Salvador Duran at Team Aguri. He retired from his first ePrix and finished outside the points in his remaining races with the team. In the following season he drove for TeCheetah but was replaced by Esteban Gutiérrez after a difficult opening three rounds.
Ma made further Formula E appearances in 2017, standing in twice for the Nio Formula E Team — once in Paris replacing Luca Filippi, and once in New York replacing the injured Oliver Turvey. He returned to the Nio 333 FE Team full-time in the 2018–19 season alongside Turvey, but was not renewed for the 2020–21 season.
Ma competed in the 2020 TCR China series in a Lynk and Co 03 TCR built by Geely Group Motorsport. At the season finale in Macau he finished second in the qualifying race to secure the TCR China drivers' title. In February 2022 he joined reigning world champions Lynk and Co Cyan Racing for the FIA World Touring Car Cup, racing in the 2022 series.
Ma Qinghua's career is defined by a sequence of firsts for Chinese motorsport: the first Chinese driver at an FIA Formula One event, the first at his home Grand Prix, and the first to win an FIA World Championship race. His achievements came against the backdrop of genuine competitive merit rather than simply commercial access — his 2015 WTCC fourth-place championship finish with Citroën came in a season-long campaign against established international competition. He remains one of the most significant figures in Chinese motorsport history and a symbolic milestone in the sport's expansion into new global markets.