In 1976, 1977 and 1980 it used race cars from other manufacturers such as Brabham, March and Williams, which were purchased or rented, as a pure customer team at selected Grand Prix events .

After RAM with the racer, Emilio de Villota won the Aurora Series in 1980, the team advanced to the Formula 1 World Championship in the 1981 season.

The car proved uncompetitive; RAM boss John Macdonald publicly described it as "a pile of shit".

Brokered by former racing driver Guy Edwards, RAM had a sponsor in Rothmans at the start of the season, who invested “a lot of money” in the team.

Adrian Reynard tried in the spring of 1982 with a view to sponsorship money from Rothmans, to launch a systematic development program that should include wind tunnel tests, among other things.

Different approaches are followed to justify this: In retrospect, team boss John Macdonald was of the opinion that the Rothmans managers wanted to see good results too quickly: "They gave us money and expected that we would be at the front of the field within a few weeks - 'money pays it'”.

[5] The RAM pilot Jochen Masson the other hand saw the error elsewhere: Macdonald and "his boys took the money from the Rothmans and only paid their debts from previous years with it".

A few days after the conclusion of the agreement, Avon announced that the British company would withdraw from Formula One in the short term.

Adrian Reynard retroactively considered the decision to be a mistake: Mass was too old to still drive risky, while Brazilian debutant Boesel lacked the experience.

Mass's best qualifying result was 18th place in the US East Grand Prix at the Detroit street circuit; apart from that, he usually started from the last three rows of the grid.

Here, however, he was finally rated eighth after the pre-placed Nelson Piquet (Brabham) and Keke Rosberg (Williams) had been disqualified for using illegal water tanks after the race.

It was a similar story at the US West Grand Prix in Long Beach: Mass came in ninth and finished eighth after Gilles Villeneuve was disqualified for technical reasons.

There was a serious accident at the French Grand Prix: on the eleventh lap, Mass collided with Mauro Baldi's Arrows.

Mass' 821 crashed into the guard rails, rolled over them, landed upside down in a spectator area, and caught fire.

Mass took part in the first Friday practice session for Macdonald's team at the subsequent German Grand Prix, but then withdrew due to excessive pain and announced his retirement from Formula One.

Once his car broke down for technical reasons, at the Swiss Grand Prix a driver's error led to his early retirement.

Boesel finished four times; his best result was an eighth place, which he achieved after the disqualification of Niki Lauda in Belgium.

Riccardo Paletti, whose view of the stationary vehicle had previously been blocked by Boesel, was unable to react in time and crashed violently into the rear of the Ferrari.

De Villota entered his March 821 at the Belgian, Monaco, Canadian, US East and Dutch Grands Prix.

Usually, de Villota drove the slowest lap time; an exception was the US East Grand Prix, where he was faster than Nelson Piquet in the new, largely untested BMW - turbocharged Brabham BT50.