Mahindra Racing acquired Engines Engineering, an Italian motorsport firm, in 2008, giving it the technical foundation to develop its own motorcycle. The company entered the 125cc class in 2011 with a GP125 machine, scoring a first pole position at the Valencia circuit through Danny Webb in the season finale. Mahindra finished third in the constructors' standings in that debut year, demonstrating immediate competitiveness for a newcomer.
When the 125cc class was replaced by the four-stroke Moto3 format in 2012, Mahindra developed the MGP3O powered by a 250cc single-cylinder engine. The first year in the new class proved difficult. In mid-season Mahindra announced a partnership with Swiss firm Suter Racing Technology to build an all-new chassis. The team relocated from Italy to Turbenthal, Switzerland, and began preparing an upgraded package for 2013.
The 2013 season brought a significant breakthrough. Riding an improved MGP3O, Miguel Oliveira and Efrén Vázquez gave Mahindra a double top-ten in the Qatar opener. Oliveira followed with a fifth place at the Circuit of the Americas, and then in Malaysia the team claimed a podium — the first ever for an Indian constructor in a FIM World Championship race. The MGP3O recorded top-five finishes in ten of seventeen rounds that year, claimed a pole position and three circuit lap records, and placed Mahindra third in the constructors' standings.
The 2014 season continued the upward trend. Oliveira took Mahindra's first podium as a works team at the Dutch TT in Assen. Customer team Ambrogio Racing's Brad Binder added a second place at the German Grand Prix, Mahindra's best result to that point. Six top-four finishes across the year again placed Mahindra third in the Moto3 constructors' ranking.
From 2015 onward Mahindra ceased running its own team and became a full constructor, supplying motorcycles to multiple customer teams including a factory arrangement with Mapfre Aspar Team. That partnership produced Mahindra's most successful years as a manufacturer. In 2016, Aspar rider Francesco Bagnaia won in Assen — Mahindra's maiden victory in the World Championship and the first win for a motorcycle made by an Indian company. Two further victories followed that season: John McPhee dominated a wet Czech Grand Prix in Brno, and Bagnaia won by seven seconds in Malaysia. The 2016 Czech round also delivered Mahindra's first double podium.
Mahindra's exit from Moto3 was announced in June 2017. The manufacturer cited the desire to focus exclusively on Formula E, where it had competed since the inaugural 2014–15 season. Mahindra remained the only Indian constructor to have participated in Moto3, and the MGP3O remained the only motorcycle built by an Indian manufacturer to have won a FIM World Championship Grand Prix.
In parallel with its World Championship activities, Mahindra also competed in the Italian National Motorcycle Championship (CIV), winning the CIV Constructor's Cup in 2012 — the first time an Indian team had won an international motorsport championship — and repeating in the CIV Moto3 constructors' class in 2013 and 2015.
Riders who passed through Mahindra machinery in the World Championship included future MotoGP stars Jorge Martin, Francesco Bagnaia, and Brad Binder, giving the programme an outsized long-term significance relative to its competitive window.