Zakspeed was founded in 1968 by Erich Zakowski and was based in Niederzissen, Rhineland-Palatinate, roughly 25 kilometres from the Nürburgring. The team built its reputation in German touring car racing, becoming the official Ford squad in the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft during the late 1970s and winning the overall championship in 1981 with Klaus Ludwig. Experience with forced-induction engines in sports car racing, particularly through the development of the Ford C100 Group C programme, provided the technical foundation for Zakspeed's own Formula One power unit.
Zakspeed entered Formula One in 1985 with Jonathan Palmer as its sole driver, fielding a self-built chassis powered by its own 1.5-litre straight-four turbocharged engine. Producing the car's entire package in-house placed Zakspeed in rare company: at the time, only Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Renault were doing the same. The technical achievement was significant, but performance on track was modest.
For 1986 Zakspeed ran two cars, and for 1987 the team recruited Martin Brundle from Tyrrell in what was effectively a swap with Jonathan Palmer, who moved in the opposite direction. Christian Danner, the first Formula 3000 champion, joined Brundle as the second driver after leaving Arrows.
The team's sole championship points finish came at the 1987 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, where Brundle qualified fifteenth and finished fifth to score two points. This remained Zakspeed's only points result in Formula One. The 1987 car, the Zakspeed 871, was powered by the team's own engine rated at approximately 820 bhp, sponsored primarily by German tobacco company West.
For 1988, Zakspeed introduced the 881, their last turbocharged car. Neither Brundle's replacement Bernd Schneider nor Piercarlo Ghinzani scored points that year. When turbocharged engines were banned from 1989, Zakspeed switched to a Yamaha V8 unit for the new Zakspeed 891, a decision that proved disastrous. The Yamaha OX88 produced only around 560 bhp — well below the 620 bhp of the standard Judd V8 used by many rivals — and the car struggled to even pre-qualify. Schneider managed to start only two races all season; his rookie team-mate Aguri Suzuki never made it past pre-qualifying at any round. Despite announcements of a continued Yamaha engine partnership for 1990, Zakspeed withdrew from Formula One at the end of the 1989 season.
Following the F1 withdrawal, Zakspeed returned to touring car competition, running Mercedes and Opel machinery in the DTM and the ITC series through the 1990s. Peter Zakowski, Erich's son, took over leadership of the team and achieved success in endurance racing, winning the 24 Hours Nürburgring in 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2002. The team continued operating in various categories into the 2000s, including a brief excursion into CART racing in 2001 and management of Superleague Formula cars in 2008 and 2009.
Zakspeed's Formula One programme stands as a genuine if ultimately unsuccessful attempt by a German privateer to field a fully self-sufficient Grand Prix team. The ambition of building both chassis and engine put the team in elite company technically, but the power and reliability of the Zakspeed turbo unit never reached the level required to compete with the leading manufacturers. The team's single championship points finish — Brundle's fifth at Imola in 1987 — is a footnote that captures both the scale of the achievement in reaching the top level and the limits of what the team was able to accomplish there.