Prema Racing, based in Grisignano di Zocco, Italy, had established itself as the premier team in FIA Formula 3 European Championship competition during the 2010s, winning all team championships from 2011 through 2018 and producing Formula 1 graduates including Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Mick Schumacher, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. When the FIA restructured the junior ladder and replaced the European F3 series with the new FIA Formula 3 Championship for 2019, Prema entered with an equally strong operation.
In the first season of the FIA Formula 3 Championship, Prema entered Robert Shwartzman, Jehan Daruvala, and Marcus Armstrong. The team comprehensively won the teams' title. Shwartzman claimed the drivers' championship, with Armstrong finishing second and Daruvala third — a one-two-three for the team that underlined just how substantial Prema's advantage was over rivals.
Shwartzman's title was particularly notable given the competitive entry. All three Prema drivers had Ferrari Driver Academy affiliations, reflecting the team's long-standing ties with Ferrari's junior development structure.
Prema's 2020 FIA Formula 3 lineup featured Logan Sargeant, Frederik Vesti, and Oscar Piastri. Piastri won the drivers' championship in his first season at this level, continuing the team's streak of producing champions. Sargeant and Vesti finished third and fourth in the standings respectively.
Piastri's 2020 F3 title was the first of three consecutive junior championships he would win, paving a path to Formula 1 with McLaren. The 2020 season demonstrated that Prema's dominance was not reliant on any particular cohort — the team consistently elevated drivers regardless of the competitive environment.
Prema maintained its presence in the FIA Formula 3 Championship through the 2020s, continuing to field Ferrari Driver Academy and other manufacturer-backed juniors. The team's operational infrastructure, developed across decades of European F3 competition, gave it structural advantages in data acquisition, driver coaching, and logistics that rivals found difficult to match.
The FIA Formula 3 Championship became one of Prema's core series during this period alongside FIA Formula 2, Italian Formula 4, Formula Regional European Championship, and — from 2025 — the IndyCar Series. The team operated up to 29 drivers across fourteen championships by the mid-2020s, with the FIA junior ladder series remaining central to its identity.
Among the drivers who competed for Prema in the FIA Formula 3 Championship and subsequently progressed to Formula 1 or top-level competition: Oscar Piastri (McLaren F1), Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes F1), and Logan Sargeant (Williams F1). Robert Shwartzman became a Scuderia Ferrari test driver following his successful Prema campaign. The pipeline from Prema's F3 entry to F1 cockpits became one of the defining characteristics of the series in the early years of the new championship.
Prema's record in FIA Formula 3 continued the extraordinary run the team had established in the European championship, making it the benchmark team in junior single-seater racing and a first-choice destination for manufacturer academy drivers. The 2019 one-two-three finish in the drivers' standings was among the most dominant single-season performances by any team in the history of the FIA junior formula ladder.