The first Formula 1 victory for a Lotus came at Monaco in 1960 when Stirling Moss beat the dominant Ferrari team in his privately entered Rob Walker Lotus 18. The first victory of Team Lotus was in 1961 when Innes Ireland won the United States Grand Prix.

There were successes in Formula 2 and Formula Junior. The road car business was doing well with the Lotus Seven and the Lotus Elite and this was followed by the Lotus Elan in 1962, during which year the entire Lotus enterprise moved to their current facilities at Hethel Norfolk. More racing success followed with the 26R, racing version of the Elan, and in 1963 with the Lotus Cortina, which Jack Sears drove to the British Touring Car Championship title, a feat repeated by Jim Clark in 1964.
In 1963 Clark drove the Lotus 25 to a remarkable seven wins in a season and won the World Championship. The 1964 title was still for the taking by the time of the last race in Mexico but problems with Clark's Lotus and Hill's BRM gave it to Surtees in his Ferrari. However, in 1965, Clark dominated again, six wins in his Lotus 33 gave him the championship. For the new 3-liter Formula 1 in 1966 Chapman chose BRM engines (a mistake) for his Lotus 43 but the arrival of the Ford Cosworth DFV, designed by former Lotus employee Keith Duckworth, in 1967 returned the team to winning ways.The first ever Formula Ford car was built around a Formula 3 Lotus, the Type 51. Graham Hill won the F1 World Championship in 1968 driving the Lotus 49. In 1970 Jochen Rindt was posthumous World Champion having driven a "49" and the Lotus 72 to victory. Emerson Fittipaldi used a revised version of the car to win Lotus another World Championship in 1972. In addition. Team Lotus won the F1 World Championship for Manufacturers for a sixth time in 1973.

The company, now permanently situated at Ketteringham Hall, continued to do well financially as the demand for sports cars in the 1960s, before the US Federal Government introduced the sweeping regulations of the '70's, seemed to be endless.

Chapman was also successful at Indianapolis with the Lotus 29 almost winning the 500 at its first attempt in 1963 with Clark at the wheel. The race marked the beginning of the end for the old front-engined Indianapolis roadsters. Clark was leading when he retired from the 1964 event with suspension failure, but in 1965 he won the biggest prize in US racing driving his Lotus 38; The first ever mid-engined car to win the Indianapolis 500.

Many of Chapman's successes came from innovation. The Lotus 25 was the first monocoque chassis in F1, the 49 was the first car of note to use the engine as a stressed member, the Lotus 56 Indycar was powered by a gas turbine engine and was fitted with four wheel drive, the Lotus 63 was the first mid-engined F1 car to race with four wheel drive, and the 72 broke new ground in aerodynamics. Chapman was also an innovator as a team boss, and it was Team Lotus which first introduced major commercial sponsorship to F1 at Monaco in 1968 appearing in the Red, Gold and White colors of Imperial Tobacco's Gold Leaf brand.

Team Lotus was first to achieve 50 Grand Prix victories. (Ferrari was the second team to do so, having won their first Formula 1 race in 1951, seven years before the first ever Lotus F1 car.)

In the mid-1970s Lotus engineers began to investigate aerodynamic ground effects. The '''Lotus 78''', and then the Lotus 79 of 1978 were extraordinarily successful with Mario Andretti winning the F1 World Championship. Lotus attempted to take ground effects further with the Lotus 80 and Lotus 88 The team was the first team to introduce carbon fibre to F1, when it introduced its all carbon fibre Lotus 91 in 1982. Chapman was beginning work on an active suspension development program when he died of a heart attack in December 1982 at the age of only 54.