During the 1960s, although the company had no official presence in the top tier of motorsport, several Formula One teams used independently developed Alfa Romeo engines to power their cars.

Although the Brabham-Alfa Romeo's first season was relatively modest, during the 1977 and 1978 World Championships their cars took 14 podium finishes, including two race victories for Niki Lauda.

[8][9] From 1934 to the start of World War II in 1939, Alfa often experienced a scarcity of victories, as their cars appeared underdeveloped compared to the technically advanced Mercedes.

[14] Surprisingly, the team won the two World Drivers' Championships on a very limited budget, using only nine engine blocks that were built before the war.

[19] In 1952, facing increased competition from Ferrari, the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale, a public holding company controlling Alfa Romeo, decided to withdraw the team from Formula One after the Italian government's refusal to fund the expensive design of a new car to replace the 13-year-old model.

[19] In 1976, Alfa Romeo started supplying engines to Brabham, winning two Grands Prix during the 1978 Formula One season.

In 1981, the team's best achievement that year was Giacomelli's third-place finish at the 1981 Caesars Palace Grand Prix with an Alfa Romeo 179C.

[40] Alfa Romeo itself had no technical involvement with the team – which continued using customer Ferrari power units – with Sauber describing its relationship with the automaker as a "commercial partnership".

[41] Other sponoros for the season included Shell,[42] Singha,[43] Axitea,[44] Carrera,[45] Iveco,[46] Richard Mille,[45] Magneti Marelli,[47] Pirelli, Claro,[48] Adler-Pelzer,[47] Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Betsafe,[49] Little Mole,[46] Singapore Airlines,[46] Sparco,[50] and Huski Chocolate.

[51] Alfa Romeo's challenger for the 2019 season was the C38, continuing the naming convention from previous Sauber Formula One cars.

The C38 included unique aerodynamic design elements in comparison to its rivals and predecessors, particularly at the front of the car as a result of regulation changes for the new season.

[59] In July 2021, Alfa Romeo Racing extended their deal with Sauber with a multi-year agreement with yearly assessments.

[67][68] The team also signed a partnership agreement with live streaming platform Kick,[69] which is invested by Stake co-founder and owner Eddie Craven.

[78] At the end of the 1960s, Alfa Romeo was developing a new V8 engine for its racing cars, which was briefly tested on the Cooper T86C F1-3-68 by Lucien Bianchi.

[82] In 1976, Bernie Ecclestone did a deal for the Brabham Formula One team to use Alfa Romeo engines based on their new flat-12 sports car unit designed by Carlo Chiti.

[88] Gordon Murray's increasingly adventurous designs, like the BT46 which won two races in 1978 (the Swedish and the Italian Grand Prixs) and finished third in the Constructors standings, were partly a response to the challenge of producing a suitably light and aerodynamic chassis around the bulky unit.

[89] At Murray's instigation, Alfa produced a narrower V12 design in only three months for the 1979 season, but it proved to be unreliable and fuel-inefficient.

[91] Designed by Gianni Tonti,[92] the Alfa Romeo 415T four-cylinder turbo engine was tested in a Ligier JS29 by René Arnoux.

[99] By 1988, the last turbo season, Alfa was fed up with the negative publicity generated by Osella's cars, so the Milan-based manufacturer prohibited the further use of its name in connection with the engine.

[101][103] In 1988, Alfa Romeo (part of the Fiat Group) bought Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (otherwise known as the Brabham F1 team) to build a chassis for a new ProCar series.

[38] On 2 December 2017, a press conference was held at the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, Milan, illustrating the terms of the agreement between the FCA Group and the Swiss team followed by a presentation ceremony for the livery and the driver line-up consisting of Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson.

[113] On 1 February 2019, it was announced that the team would enter the 2019 season as Alfa Romeo Racing with the ownership and management structure remaining unchanged.