Motori Moderni's power unit debuted at the 1985 San Marino Grand Prix with the newly born Minardi Formula One team.
In 1986, as the Minardi team expanded to running two cars, Martini was replaced with Andrea de Cesaris, and paired with F1 rookie Alessandro Nannini, who showed his class by often outpacing his more experienced countryman.
The team only participated in two races during the 1986 season, with Ivan Capelli retiring from both the Italian and Portuguese Grands Prix.
Minardi, who had retained Nannini after an impressive debut season, replaced de Cesaris (who had moved to Brabham) with Spanish driver Adrián Campos.
At the 1987 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, Nannini qualified an impressive 13th on the grid only 3.434 behind Gerhard Berger's pole-winning Ferrari.
Campos qualified 26th and last (3.42 seconds slower than Nannini), with his race ending with transmission failure after 46 of the scheduled 82 laps.