Carlin Motorsport was founded in 1996 by Trevor Carlin and Martin Stone. It built an early reputation in Porsche Supercup and junior formulae before establishing itself as one of the most successful teams in British Formula 3 history, winning nine championships with drivers including Takuma Sato (2001), Daniel Ricciardo (2009), Jean-Eric Vergne (2010), Felipe Nasr (2011), and Lando Norris (2017 FIA European F3).
In 2009, the team underwent a structural overhaul with investment from Grahame Chilton's Capsicum Motorsport Group, dropping the "Motorsport" suffix to become simply Carlin.
Carlin competed across a broad span of junior series, accumulating championship wins across categories. In GP2 and later FIA Formula 2, the team fielded numerous future Formula One drivers: Lando Norris finished runner-up in F2 in 2018 alongside Sergio Sette Camara while helping Carlin clinch the teams' title in their debut F2 season. Yuki Tsunoda placed third in the 2020 F2 drivers' standings with the team. Logan Sargeant represented Carlin in the 2022 F2 championship before his Williams Formula One debut the following year.
In FIA Formula 3, the team joined the revamped championship in 2018, producing podium finishers and developing additional Formula One prospects.
Carlin entered the IndyCar Series in 2018 with Max Chilton and Charlie Kimball, fulfilling a long-held ambition to compete at the highest level of American open-wheel racing. Conor Daly contributed to the programme part-time and earned Carlin its first IndyCar pole position at the 2020 Iowa IndyCar 250s. The team pulled out of IndyCar at the end of the 2021 season, selling its assets to Juncos Hollinger Racing.
In 2023, Rodin Cars founder David Dicker became the majority shareholder, triggering the Rodin Carlin rebrand. The partnership was intended to elevate the team's profile and resources, but a falling-out between Dicker and the Carlins led to both Trevor and Stephanie Carlin leaving the team in late 2023. Dicker assumed full ownership and rebranded the operation as Rodin Motorsport, severing the Carlin family connection that had defined the outfit for nearly three decades.
Few teams in junior motorsport can claim a graduate list of comparable depth. From the Carlin stable emerged Sebastian Vettel (FR3.5 and F3), Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Takuma Sato, Anthony Davidson, Jaime Alguersuari, Daniel Ricciardo, Jean-Eric Vergne, Kevin Magnussen, Felipe Nasr, George Russell, Carlos Sainz Jr., Lando Norris, Yuki Tsunoda, and Liam Lawson, among many others. IndyCar champions Josef Newgarden and Ed Jones also passed through the team.
The breadth of that graduate list reflects Carlin's philosophy of blending talented pay drivers with genuinely rapid prospects across a wide portfolio of championships — a model that made the team one of the most recognisable names in international junior racing for over two decades.