Tecno began as an engineering company manufacturing hydraulic pumps. In 1961, the Pederzani brothers turned to motorsport as kart constructors. Their second chassis, the Piuma (meaning "Feather"), revolutionised kart design and was successful enough to win the World Karting Championships in 1964, 1965, and 1966. Tecno was also the first company to build an offset — or "sidewinder" — kart chassis to exploit newly developed air-cooled rotary motors from Parilla.
The company graduated to car racing in 1966 with Formula Three. Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni scored Tecno's first international car racing win in Spain in 1967, and by the end of that year Tecno had won 32 of the season's 65 major Formula Three races. In 1969, Ronnie Peterson drove for the team, taking 15 victories.
Tecno debuted in Formula Two in 1970 and won the European Formula Two Championship that year with Clay Regazzoni. This success attracted Count Teofilo Guiscardo Rossi di Montelera of Martini and Rossi fame, who became a partner and title sponsor as the Pederzani brothers planned the leap to Formula One.
Tecno's Formula One car made its first competitive appearance at the 1972 Belgian Grand Prix, driven by Nanni Galli. The team adopted red livery, both to honour Italian racing tradition and to suit the Martini and Rossi sponsorship. The engine, designed by Luciano Pederzani with Renato Armaroli and Giuseppe Bocchi, was a flat-twelve unit broadly similar in concept to the contemporary Ferrari engine, though reportedly less powerful.
Galli finished third at the non-championship 1972 Italian Republic Grand Prix at Vallelunga but scored no World Championship points during the season. At the Italian Grand Prix, Tecno fielded a second car for Derek Bell. Although Galli outqualified Bell, team manager David Yorke retained Bell for the final two rounds in North America and ended Galli's involvement.
Internal disagreements defined and ultimately destroyed Tecno's second Formula One season. Serious disputes arose between the Pederzani brothers and Rossi and Yorke over sporting and technical direction. The Pederzanis wanted to hire Regazzoni; Rossi and Yorke preferred Chris Amon, who had been unable to agree terms with March Engineering. The split led each faction to commission its own new chassis: Yorke and Rossi engaged designer Gordon Fowell to build the E371, while the Pederzanis hired Alan McCall to design a new car. McCall departed before completion, and Ron Tauranac — freelancing after selling Brabham at the end of 1972 — finished the car, which became the PA123.
Missing the early-season rounds due to this upheaval, Tecno finally debuted in 1973 at the Belgian Grand Prix, where Amon finished sixth in the PA123, achieving the team's first and only World Championship point. The car showed further promise at Monaco, where Amon qualified 12th, ahead of Jacky Ickx's Ferrari, and ran in the upper midfield for 25 laps before retiring.
At the British Grand Prix, the bizarre situation of two different Tecno cars — the Fowell E371 and the McCall-Tauranac PA123 — occupied the same garage simultaneously. Amon qualified last in the PA123, avoided a massive opening-lap accident triggered by Jody Scheckter, but retired with a broken fuel pump after six laps. The same fuel pump problem ended his Dutch Grand Prix six laps later.
By the Austrian Grand Prix, a frustrated Amon had departed for Tyrrell. The Pederzanis, exhausted by the toxic atmosphere, decided to shut down the Formula One programme entirely. Rossi took the Martini and Rossi sponsorship to Brabham in 1974 and eventually established the Martini Racing brand. Luciano and Gianfranco Pederzani retired from top-level motorsport, citing the 1973 disputes as their primary reason for disillusionment.
Tecno's story is one of the sport's notable might-have-beens: a team that reached Formula One with a remarkable track record in junior categories and genuine engineering ambition, only to collapse under the weight of a management split that produced two competing cars and no coherent technical programme. The single point scored by Chris Amon in Belgium remains Tecno's only mark in the Formula One World Championship. The company continued to build karts long after leaving grand prix racing, maintaining its original commercial core.