He moved up to the main class in 2003, driving for both the SYR and Promatecme teams, before driving for both the Menu and P1 teams in 2004. He moved to the GP2 Series for 2005, becoming one of a number of Asian drivers in the championship. Despite being the only driver to start every race and not score a point, he continued in the series for 2006, again scoring no points. During this time he was also one of A1 Team Malaysia's drivers (along with Alex Yoong) in the A1 Grand Prix series.
Fairuz was confirmed as one of Spyker F1's test and reserve drivers for 2007,[2] Fairuz was tipped for a Lotus Racing reserve seat for 2010. On 9 November 2009 Lotus Racing chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne confirmed Fairuz would be the test driver for the team but cooled down talks he was going to get a race seat.[3]
Fairuz was announced as the third driver for Lotus on 13 December 2009.[4]
The relationship between Lotus Racing and Group Lotus soured during 2010, resulting in GL deciding to withdraw its backing from the team and instead sponsoring Renault F1 for the 2011 season onwards. As part of the deal, Fairuz became one of Renault's test and reserve drivers, alongside Bruno Senna, Romain Grosjean and Ho-Pin Tung.[9]