The team began competing in the Italian Formula 3 Championship in 1984, establishing national F3 as its early proving ground. Among its first notable alumni were future touring car star Fabrizio Giovanardi, multiple Le Mans winner Rinaldo Capello, and Formula 1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve. Italian F3 titles followed in 1990 with Roberto Colciago, in 1998 with Donny Crevels, and in 1999 with Peter Sundberg. In 1988 Prema made its first appearance at the Macau Grand Prix, a fixture the team would attend across most of the following decades.
Prema's expansion into modern Formula Renault from 2000 yielded the Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup Team Championship and the Italian Formula Renault 2000 title with Ryan Briscoe in 2001, followed by a further Italian crown in 2005 with Kamui Kobayashi. Entering the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2003, the team won the inaugural edition with Briscoe, then rebounded after difficult years to claim the 2011 and 2012 titles with Roberto Mehri and Daniel Juncadella respectively.
When the series evolved into the FIA Formula 3 European Championship, Prema achieved near-total dominance, winning every team title from 2011 through 2018 and all but one driver championship during that stretch. Alumni who went on to reach Formula 1 from this period include Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Mick Schumacher, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Juncadella also delivered the team's first Macau Grand Prix victory in 2011.
Prema entered the GP2 Series in 2016 and immediately finished 1–2 at debut with Pierre Gasly and Antonio Giovinazzi. When GP2 became the FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2017, Ferrari Driver Academy's Charles Leclerc claimed seven wins and seven poles en route to the title. Mick Schumacher won the 2020 F2 championship under the Prema banner, with Robert Shwartzman finishing fourth that year with the most wins.
Alongside its upper-tier programmes, Prema embraced Formula 4 from the outset, winning the first two editions of the Italian Formula 4 Championship with Lance Stroll and Ralf Aron. The team's 2020 Formula Regional European Championship campaign was comprehensively dominant, with Gianluca Petecof, Arthur Leclerc, and Oliver Rasmussen finishing first, second, and third in the standings. Oscar Piastri won the 2020 FIA F3 Championship driving for Prema, with Logan Sargeant and Frederik Vesti also in the squad.
Prema made its FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series debuts in 2022, broadening the team's scope beyond single-seater junior categories. The team is also the sister operation of Iron Lynx and its own sibling Iron Dames.
In April 2024 Prema confirmed entry into the 2025 IndyCar Series season, supplied by Chevrolet engines and fielding Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman. Shwartzman secured the team's first pole position at the 2025 Indianapolis 500, becoming the first rookie to win the pole in qualifying since 1983. The team's continued involvement subsequently came into doubt following media reports concerning financial stability from November 2025 onward and the departure of the Rosin family from the organisation in January 2026. By February 2026, Australian engineer Stephen Mitas had been appointed as Prema's new team principal and CEO.
At its peak Prema simultaneously fielded 29 drivers across fourteen championships, making it one of the most expansive junior programmes in global motorsport. Its role as a common thread connecting multiple Formula 1 academy programmes — Toyota, Renault, Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, and Williams — has made it the defining nursery of the modern single-seater ladder.