The team's legal entity was Bartels Motor & Sport GmbH, with Michael Bartels — a former Formula One and DTM driver — functioning simultaneously as co-owner and lead driver. The operation debuted in FIA GT competition in 2004 with a Saleen S7-R, run in practice by Konrad Motorsport but entered under the Vitaphone name. That year the team finished fourth in the Teams' Championship and also contested the European Le Mans Series with the same car.
For 2005 the team switched to the Maserati MC12, the GT racing car derived from the road-legal homologation version produced by Maserati and developed by Ferrari technicians. Andrea Bertolini joined Bartels as the permanent co-driver, and together they would form one of the sport's most successful driver partnerships of the decade. The 2005 season brought the team its first FIA GT Teams' Championship, the Manufacturers' title for Maserati, and a Spa 24 Hours victory.
The 2006 season produced the closest possible outcome in FIA GT history for the Drivers' title: Bartels and Bertolini finished the season tied on points, sharing the Drivers' Championship between them. The team also won its second consecutive Teams' Championship and claimed a second Spa 24 Hours victory.
In 2007 the team again won both the Teams' and Drivers' Championships. The sole Drivers' Champion was Thomas Biagi, after Bartels missed the Silverstone and Bucharest rounds — replaced by Mika Salo and Fabrizio Gollin — and was excluded from points at Zhuhai for insufficient driving time.
The 2008 season was the team's most expansive campaign to that point. Bartels and Bertolini took the Drivers' title for the second time. The team also entered an Aston Martin DBR9 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as the Maserati MC12 did not qualify under ACO technical regulations for the GT1 class. At Spa, the team won a third 24-hour race, this time with Bartels and Bertolini joined by Miguel Ramos and Alexandre Negrão. That result gave Vitaphone its fourth consecutive Teams' Championship.
The 2009 season brought the fifth straight Teams' Championship, with the title clinched at the Paul Ricard round — Bartels and Bertolini placed fifth while the supporting crew entry of Müller and Ramos added a second place. Bartels and Bertolini finished third in the Drivers' standings. By that point the Maserati MC12 had accumulated eleven championships in total across all relevant classes and manufacturers' categories since its FIA GT debut in 2005.
When the FIA restructured its top-level GT programme into the FIA GT1 World Championship for 2010, Vitaphone entered the new series with two updated Maserati MC12s. At the San Luis round in Argentina, Bartels and Bertolini clinched both the Drivers' and Teams' titles in the inaugural season, giving the team its first world-level championship crown.
From 2011 onward the team shifted machinery in response to changing commercial relationships and the end of the MC12's regulatory life. The 2011 Blancpain Endurance Series campaign used Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 machinery. For 2012 the operation raced BMW Z4 GT3 cars under the Vita4One name, with one final FIA GT1 World Championship appearance. Subsequent seasons saw appearances in the ADAC GT Masters, Blancpain GT Series, and British GT without significant results. The team's last competitive season was 2014.
Michael Bartels (born 1968, Wuppertal) had raced in Formula One with Coloni in 1991 and subsequently in the DTM before turning primarily to GT competition. His role at Vitaphone was unique in FIA GT terms: simultaneous team owner, race driver, and the primary architect of the commercial and technical structure. Andrea Bertolini, the Italian driver who joined permanently for 2005, formed an unusually consistent partnership with Bartels; the two raced together for the entire Maserati era and continued into the Ferrari and BMW campaigns. Their tally across the Vitaphone years included three shared Drivers' Championships — 2006, 2008, and 2009 in the FIA GT standings — alongside the 2010 FIA GT1 World Championship.