Prema began operating in 1983 and joined the Italian Formula Three Championship the following year. The team established itself through the 1980s and 1990s in national F3, with notable early alumni including Fabrizio Giovanardi, endurance racing star Rinaldo Capello, and Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve. Further Italian F3 titles came in 1990 with Roberto Colciago, 1998 with Donny Crevels, and 1999 with Peter Sundberg. The team made its first international appearance at the Macau Grand Prix in 1988 and would return to that event for much of the following decades.
From 2000 Prema expanded into Formula Renault competition, winning the Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup Teams' Championship and the Italian Formula Renault 2000 title with Ryan Briscoe in 2001. Kamui Kobayashi won the Italian Formula Renault 2000 championship for the team in 2005. The team entered the Formula Three Euro Series in 2003 and won the inaugural edition with Briscoe. After a difficult middle period, Prema rebounded by taking the 2011 title with Roberto Mehri and the 2012 crown with Daniel Juncadella, who also gave the team its first Macau Grand Prix win in 2011.
When the series transitioned into the FIA Formula 3 European Championship, Prema achieved near-total domination. The team won all teams' titles from 2011 through 2018 and all drivers' championships but one over the same span. Champions during this era who went on to Formula One include Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Mick Schumacher, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. In parallel, Prema won the first two Italian Formula 4 Championship titles with Stroll in 2014 and Ralf Aron in 2015.
Prema entered the GP2 Series in 2016 and finished one-two at their debut, with Pierre Gasly winning ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi. In the renamed FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2017, Charles Leclerc of the Ferrari Driver Academy won seven races and seven pole positions to clinch the title at an early stage. Mick Schumacher won the F2 drivers' championship in 2020 — the last season before ascending to Formula One — and Robert Shwartzman, Jehan Daruvala, and Marcus Armstrong all drove for Prema across these championship-winning campaigns.
Prema won the inaugural FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2019 with Shwartzman as drivers' champion, Armstrong second, and Daruvala third. In the 2020 Formula Regional European Championship, the team dominated entirely: Gianluca Petecof, Arthur Leclerc, and Oliver Rasmussen finished first, second, and third in the drivers' standings. Oscar Piastri won the 2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship for Prema before going on to claim the F2 crown with a rival team.
In early 2024, Prema confirmed an entry into the 2025 IndyCar Series with drivers Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman, supplied by Chevrolet. Shwartzman secured pole position for the 2025 Indianapolis 500, becoming the first rookie to win the pole since 1983. However, the team's continued IndyCar involvement became uncertain following reports of financial difficulties in late 2025 and the exit of the Rosin family from the team's ownership in January 2026. Australian engineer Stephen Mitas was named team principal and CEO in February 2026.
Prema Racing's alumni list reads as a who's who of junior motorsport graduates across four decades. The team's ability to win championships at every level of the FIA ladder — from Italian F4 through F3, F2, and into international endurance racing — and to simultaneously run programmes for multiple major Formula One manufacturers, makes it one of the defining institutions of European junior motorsport.