Surtees originally formed the team in 1966 to enter the newly created Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) sports car series, driving a Lola T70 to the inaugural championship title as owner-driver. After a difficult 1969 season with BRM, he elected to return to the owner-driver format and expand into Formula One.
Before the team's own car was ready, Surtees contested the first four races of the 1970 season in an old McLaren chassis. The in-house Surtees TS7, designed by Surtees alongside Shahab Ahmed and Peter Connew, debuted later that year and earned the team's first championship points at the Canadian Grand Prix.
For 1971 Surtees added a second full-time car for Rolf Stommelen, and ran additional cars for various other drivers across the season. John Surtees, Stommelen, and returning motorcycle champion Mike Hailwood each scored three points. After 1971 Surtees stepped back from driving, and the team entered 1972 with three full-time drivers: Hailwood, Australian Tim Schenken, and Italian Andrea de Adamich.
Hailwood delivered the team's first podium that year, finishing second to Emerson Fittipaldi at the Italian Grand Prix. All three drivers scored points and Surtees placed fifth in the Constructors' Championship — the team's best season.
Brazilian Carlos Pace replaced Schenken for 1973 and scored third at Austria and fourth at Germany, but Hailwood left scoreless. Jochen Mass replaced Hailwood for 1974, a season severely disrupted by driver changes and financial pressure. Pace departed mid-season, replacement Derek Bell struggled to qualify, and Austrian Helmut Koinigg was fatally injured in a crash at the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen when an Armco barrier failed on impact. A fourth place by Pace at the Brazilian Grand Prix were the team's only championship points that year.
By 1975 financial constraints had reduced the team to a single entry for John Watson. No championship points were scored, and the team missed three of the final four races.
The 1976 season brought a controversial but commercially significant sponsorship from Durex condoms — giving the team funding to mount a more competitive campaign with the new TS19 chassis. Australian Alan Jones joined as lead driver and finished fifth in Belgium and at Brands Hatch, and fourth in Japan. A second car was entered for Brett Lunger under Chesterfield sponsorship, while Henri Pescarolo raced a customer car in the second half of the season. Seven points put the team tenth in the Constructors' Championship.
Jones's results attracted attention from other teams and he departed for Shadow. Vittorio Brambilla drove the Durex car through 1977, scoring points at Belgium, Germany, Canada, and twice in Argentina, finishing fourth at Brands Hatch. The team placed eleventh with six points. In 1978, with Brambilla joined by pay driver Rupert Keegan, no championship points were scored and mounting financial pressures made a full season impossible. The team withdrew after the 1978 season despite having completed a car for 1979.
Across nine seasons the Surtees organisation developed an extensive line of cars spanning F5000 (TS5, TS8, TS11), Formula 2 (TS10, TS15), and Formula One (TS7, TS9, TS14, TS16, TS19, TS20). The TS14 was notable as the first Formula One car to fully comply with crumple-zone legislation, incorporating these structures into side pods that housed the radiators — a layout that became standard in subsequent F1 design. Mike Hailwood won the 1972 European Formula Two Championship in the TS10.
John Surtees remains the only person to have won world championships on both two wheels and four, and the Surtees Racing Organisation stands alongside Brabham, Hill, Stewart, Fittipaldi, and Prost as a team built by a champion driver from the ground up.