Lovely had been racing for several years before his most celebrated early result. On 9 November 1957 he drove a Ferrari to win the very first race ever held at Laguna Seca, an achievement that brought him national recognition among sports car racing circles.
Lovely made his Formula One World Championship debut on 10 May 1959 at the Monaco Grand Prix, entered by Team Lotus in a Lotus 16 fitted with a Coventry Climax FPF engine. He did not qualify for that race. He returned later in 1959 and attempted further championship rounds.
In 1960 he continued his Formula One programme, this time entered by Fred Armbruster in a Cooper T51 using a Ferrari engine. He made further championship entries across that season, though he scored no World Championship points across either of his early campaigns. His total entries across 1959 and 1960 formed the first chapter of an F1 involvement he would resume nearly a decade later.
Away from Formula One, Lovely produced one of his finest results in endurance racing. At the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring he co-drove a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa with Jack Nethercutt. The pair completed 186 laps to finish third overall and first in the S3.0 class — a significant result in one of the most prestigious sportscar races in North America. The following year they returned to Sebring with the same car but retired after a single lap with oil pump failure.
Lovely returned to Formula One competition in 1969, now running his cars under the entry name "Pete Lovely Volkswagen Inc." to reflect his business interests. He raced a Lotus 49B fitted with a Cosworth DFV engine across championship and non-championship events, finishing sixth at the 1969 Race of Champions.
He continued in 1970 and 1971 with further Lotus machinery. His most distinctive mount was a car he constructed for the 1971 season: a Lotus 69 Formula Two chassis — a design built for the smaller 1.6-litre Formula Two category — fitted with a full 3.0-litre Cosworth DFV Formula One engine. The combination, known as the Lotus 69 Special, was unique to Lovely and reflected the entrepreneurial approach he brought to privateering at the top level of the sport.
Across his entire Formula One career Lovely made eleven World Championship entries, starting seven races, and scored no championship points. He also competed at non-championship events including the BRDC International Trophy.
In 1954, Lovely opened Pete Lovely Volkswagen, a Volkswagen dealership in Fife, Washington, which he operated for 34 years. The dealership provided the financial foundation for his racing activity and its name appeared on his Formula One entries as a form of commercial identification. He also operated Pete Lovely Racing, a business focused on restoring and preparing vintage racing cars.
His only son, Chris, grew up working on his father's cars and went on to become a highly regarded mechanic in Can-Am, CART, Champ Car, and IndyCar, working for championship-winning teams across multiple decades.
After retiring from Formula One, Lovely continued as a competitor and entrant in various forms of racing in the United States through the 1980s. He participated in vintage and historic events well into the 2000s, his competitive career ultimately spanning more than fifty years. He died on 15 May 2011 at his home in Tacoma, Washington, aged 85, from Alzheimer's disease.