Baldi began in rallying in 1972 before switching to circuit racing in 1975 with the Italian Renault 5 Cup. He steadily climbed through the single-seater ranks and by 1980 had reached the top of Formula 3, claiming the Monaco F3 Grand Prix. In 1981 he won the European Formula 3 Championship with eight victories, establishing himself as one of the leading young drivers in Europe.
In 1982 Baldi graduated to Formula One with Arrows, then moved to Alfa Romeo in 1983, where he scored a fifth place finish at Zandvoort in the Dutch Grand Prix. When Benetton became Alfa Romeo's title sponsor in 1984, Baldi lost his drive and spent the remainder of his Formula One career with the underfunded Spirit team through 1985.
A near-return to the top category came in 1989, when Baldi agreed with Coloni to take over a car from Enrico Bertaggia for the Italian Grand Prix. The move was vetoed by Jochen Neerpasch, the sporting director of Mercedes, for whom Baldi was then racing in sportscars. He returned briefly to the Formula One world in 1990 as the primary test driver for the Modena Lambo project.
While still in Formula One, Baldi also drove for the works Martini-Lancia team in 1984 and 1985, beginning a parallel sportscar career that would ultimately prove far more successful. In 1986 he joined Richard Lloyd Racing with a Porsche 956, and in 1988 returned to a full works programme with Sauber-Mercedes. Sharing a car with Jean-Louis Schlesser, Baldi took the 1990 FIA World Sports Prototype Championship for Drivers. Between 1991 and 1992 he drove for Peugeot.
The peak of Baldi's endurance career came at Le Mans in 1994, when he shared the Dauer 962 Le Mans — a modified Porsche 962 — with Yannick Dalmas and Hurley Haywood to take outright victory. He went on to win the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1998 and again in 2002 with Doran, and the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1998 alongside Arie Luyendyk and Didier Theys. The Sebring win completed the informal Triple Crown of endurance racing — Le Mans, Daytona, and Sebring — joining a very small group of drivers to have achieved the feat.
Baldi's career trajectory — from single-seater promise to world-class endurance specialist — mirrors that of several Italian drivers of his generation who found greater success in sports cars than in Formula One. His association with Sauber-Mercedes and Dauer Porsche places him among the defining figures of prototype racing in the late 1980s and 1990s. Membership in the Triple Crown group underlines the breadth of his endurance achievements across three of the sport's most demanding events.
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