Carpentier began in Formula Ford 2000 Canada before progressing to the Player's Toyota Atlantic Championship in 1992. In 1995 he joined Lynx Racing and won his first race at Bicentennial Park in Miami, then won again on the Nazareth Speedway oval, though mechanical problems marked the rest of that season.
The 1996 Player's Toyota Atlantic Championship became a record-breaking campaign. Carpentier won nine of twelve races, eight consecutively, all from pole position, and set new championship records for most consecutive wins (8), most wins in a season (9), most consecutive wins from pole (8), most laps led in a season, and most accumulated points in a season (239). The run included a flag-to-flag victory at the Grand Prix Molson du Canada meeting and surpassed records previously held by Gilles Villeneuve.
After winning the 1996 Atlantic title, Carpentier secured a ride at the Bettenhausen/Alumax team in CART by defeating several veteran competitors in a test at Sebring. In his 1997 debut season he took pole at Nazareth and finished second at the inaugural Motorola 300 at Gateway, earning "Rookie of the Year" honours.
In 1998 he joined Player's Forsythe Racing, running alongside fellow Canadian Greg Moore. Following Moore's death in the 1999 season finale at the Marlboro 500 at Fontana, Carpentier became Forsythe's lead driver, with rookie Alex Tagliani joining the squad.
Carpentier's first Champ Car victory came in 2001 at the Harrah's 500 at Michigan, sealed with a last-lap pass of Dario Franchitti in what was the last CART-sanctioned Michigan 500; his first win arrived in his 79th start. In 2002 he won twice — the Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland and the Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio — and finished third in the championship. In 2003 he won the Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca but finished fifth overall, behind teammate Paul Tracy. He won the Grand Prix of Monterey again in 2004 and finished the season higher than Tracy, but left Forsythe Racing to join Eddie Cheever's Cheever Racing in the IndyCar Series for 2005. Uncompetitive Toyota engines limited his results there; he finished tenth with two third places and eleven top-tens in seventeen races.
In a 2016 interview Carpentier acknowledged he had decided to leave open-wheel racing after witnessing Ryan Briscoe's crash into the catchfence at Chicagoland, with Kenny Bräck's crash in the 2003 Texas finale also influencing the decision. Across nine years in CART and IRL, he recorded 85 top-ten finishes and 24 podiums.
Shortly after leaving IndyCar, Carpentier drove a Crawford-Lexus DP03 for Eddie Cheever at the 2006 Rolex 24 at Daytona. He then competed at the 2006 CASCAR Super Series event at Cayuga Speedway, starting 21st and finishing sixth. He subsequently ran a partial Grand-Am Road Racing season with SAMAX Motorsport in a Riley Mk XI.
Carpentier re-signed with SAMAX for the 2007 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, sharing a Riley-Pontiac Mk XI with Milka Duno, Ryan Dalziel, and Darren Manning. The team finished second at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, completing the same lap as the winner, 75.845 seconds behind after 24 hours and leading 121 of the 668 laps.
Carpentier made his NASCAR Busch Series debut at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on August 4, 2007, qualifying on pole and finishing second behind Kevin Harvick after Robby Gordon was disqualified for intentionally wrecking Marcos Ambrose. He returned to Montreal in 2008 for another second-place finish.
His NASCAR Nextel Cup debut came at Watkins Glen on August 12, 2007, in Gillett Evernham Motorsports' No. 10 Dodge, replacing Scott Riggs. He led seven laps and finished twentieth. He drove the No. 10 car full-time for Gillett Evernham Motorsports in 2008. At New Hampshire on June 27, 2008, in his 17th NASCAR race, he qualified on pole — only the second non-American driver to do so, and the first foreign-born driver since Lloyd Shaw (Toronto) won the pole at Langhorne Speedway in June 1953. He led the opening four laps but finished 31st due to brake problems. His best Sprint Cup finish was fourteenth at the Coke Zero 400 on July 5, 2008.
After leaving Gillett Evernham Motorsports at the end of 2008, Carpentier drove for Michael Waltrip Racing on the two 2009 road course rounds (Sonoma and Watkins Glen) and competed for Tommy Baldwin Racing at events conflicting with Mike Skinner's truck schedule. In 2010 he ran for Latitude 43 Motorsports. In 2016 he returned for two Cup races with Go Fas Racing at Sonoma and the Brickyard 400.
Carpentier announced his retirement on August 20, 2011, shortly before the Nationwide race in Montreal. While running fourth, contact with Steven Wallace ended his race; he left to a standing ovation. He competed once more in the 2012 Montreal Nationwide Series race to raise money for children's charities, finishing 29th. In 2011 he also attempted to qualify for the 95th Indianapolis 500 with Dragon Racing, but could not bring the car to speed in time.
In 2013 Carpentier joined the French-language sports channel RDS as a colour commentator for NASCAR broadcasts. In 2014 he made a rallycross debut in the inaugural World RX of Canada at Circuit Trois-Rivières with Volkswagen Marklund Motorsport, qualifying for the final but crashing out in sixth. He raced a JRM Racing Mini Countryman at the 2015 World RX of Canada, finishing fourteenth. He also became president of a home construction firm in Quebec. Carpentier was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2021.
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