Ralph Firman was born and raised in England but raced under Irish citizenship (his mother had an Irish passport). He went straight into racing from school and in 1996, his second year, won the British Formula Three Championship. The year was blighted by controversy at the Macau Grand Prix when he was given victory after he crashed on the final lap, causing a red-flag situation. Soon after he went to race in Japan and in 2002 won the Formula Nippon championship.

In 2003 he secured an F1 drive with Jordan alongside Giancarlo Fisichella but it was not a successful season, with his only top-ten finish coming in Spain when he was eighth. He also crashed practising for the Hungarian Grand Prix which caused him to miss two races.

He lost the drive at the end of the season and continued in A1 Grand Prix, initially as a test driver and then as part of the Ireland team. He subsequently returned to race in Japan.