De Angelis was born in Rome. His father Giulio was a wealthy real estate developer and an inshore and offshore powerboat racer who won many world championships in the 1960s and 1970s. After a brief spell with karts, de Angelis won the Italian Formula Three Championship in 1977. In 1978 he raced in Formula Two for Minardi and then for the ICI British F2 Team; he also competed in one round of the British Formula One championship and won the Monaco F3 race.
At the end of the 1977 season, the 19-year-old de Angelis was on Enzo Ferrari's short list to replace Niki Lauda. He successfully tested at Fiorano Circuit but Ferrari ultimately chose Gilles Villeneuve.
De Angelis's debut Formula One season was in 1979 with Shadow. He finished seventh in his maiden Grand Prix in Argentina and 15th in the championship with three points. His performance caught the eye of Lotus boss Colin Chapman, who hired him to partner Mario Andretti in 1980.
At the age of 21, de Angelis became the youngest Grand Prix podium finisher of all time when he finished second at the Brazilian Grand Prix, run at the Interlagos circuit.
His first victory came in the 1982 Austrian Grand Prix at the Österreichring, winning by 0.05 seconds ahead of the Williams of eventual 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg. The win was the last celebrated by Colin Chapman's act of throwing his cloth cap into the air. Chapman died in December that year; Peter Warr became the new Lotus team manager.
In 1983, Lotus switched from the Cosworth DFV — which they had used since 1967 — to Renault F1 turbo engines, but the season proved disappointing with multiple mechanical failures. De Angelis's best result was a fifth place at the 1983 Italian Grand Prix.
In 1984 de Angelis had a much better season, scoring 34 points and finishing third in the standings with three podiums. His best result was a second place at the Detroit Grand Prix. He was the only driver to finish in the top five in 1984 without scoring a race win.
In 1985, Ayrton Senna joined de Angelis at Lotus, having left the Toleman team. De Angelis's second victory came in the third race of the season, at the 1985 San Marino Grand Prix, after Alain Prost was disqualified when his McLaren MP4/2B was found 2 kg underweight. De Angelis also claimed his last Formula One pole position that year in Canada. He finished fifth in the championship with 33 points, five points behind his teammate. Frustrated that team efforts were being focused primarily on Senna, de Angelis chose to leave Lotus at the end of the season.
De Angelis's drive for 1986 was with Brabham, replacing twice World Champion Nelson Piquet, who had moved to Williams to join de Angelis's former Lotus teammate Nigel Mansell. His teammate was Riccardo Patrese, returning to the Bernie Ecclestone-owned team after two unhappy years with Alfa Romeo.
The Brabham BT55, designed by long-time Brabham designer Gordon Murray, was a lowline car with a reduced frontal area intended to improve airflow and downforce while reducing drag. However, the BMW turbo engine had to be tilted to an angle of 72°, causing severe oil surge and poor throttle response. Despite hard work from the team, it was clear from early in the season that Brabham had fallen behind the leading pack.
On 14 May 1986 — three days after the Monaco Grand Prix, in which de Angelis retired on lap 31 due to an engine failure — during tests at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, the rear wing of de Angelis's BT55 detached at high speed. The car lost downforce and cartwheeled over a crash barrier, catching fire. De Angelis was unable to extract himself from the car unassisted. A lack of track marshals exacerbated the situation, and a 30-minute delay ensued before a helicopter arrived. He died 29 hours later at a hospital in Marseille from smoke inhalation; his impact injuries were limited to a broken collarbone and light burns on his back.
De Angelis's accident ended Formula One's use of the full 5.812 km Paul Ricard circuit. F1 cars subsequently used the 3.812 km "Club" version, bypassing the Verriere curves where the Brabham had crashed and cutting the Mistral Straight from 1.8 to 1 km. Paul Ricard would not host a race on the full layout again until 2018. De Angelis's place at Brabham was taken by Derek Warwick, reportedly because Warwick was the only available top-level driver who did not contact team owner Bernie Ecclestone immediately after de Angelis's death asking to replace him.
De Angelis was the last driver to die in a Formula One car until Roland Ratzenberger died during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola eight years later. The day after Ratzenberger's death, de Angelis's former Lotus teammate Ayrton Senna died from injuries sustained in a crash at the Tamburello curve.
De Angelis's funeral took place on 18 May 1986, attended by team managers Ken Tyrrell, Peter Collins, Ron Dennis, Jack Brabham, and Frank Williams, and driver-manager Jackie Stewart. Pallbearers included Gerhard Berger, Michele Alboreto, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Roberto Moreno, Derek Warwick, Riccardo Patrese, Nigel Mansell, Martin Brundle, Patrick Tambay, and Emerson Fittipaldi. He was buried in the Verano Monumental Cemetery in Rome.
De Angelis was a concert-standard pianist. He famously kept his fellow drivers entertained by playing concertos by Chopin and Mozart while they locked themselves in a Johannesburg hotel before the 1982 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, during a Grand Prix Drivers Association strike in protest against new Super Licence conditions imposed by the FIA.
Jean Alesi, who broke into the sport in 1989, wore a helmet that matched de Angelis's design as a tribute. In 2017, de Angelis was honoured at the Ludovico Scarfiotti Memorial in Rome.
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