Born in Miami, Florida, Fittipaldi is the grandson of two-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion Emerson Fittipaldi and the older brother of racing driver Enzo. He began his racing career in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, winning the track championship at Hickory Motor Speedway in 2011. In 2012, he won one race and finished fifth in the championship.
Fittipaldi transitioned to open-wheeled racing in 2013, competing in the BRDC Formula 4 Championship and Protyre Formula Renault Championship. He won the Protyre Formula Renault Championship in 2014, clinching the title with one race remaining. He followed this with victory in the 2015–16 MRF Challenge Formula 2000 Championship, securing four wins from fourteen races.
In 2017, Fittipaldi won the World Series Formula V8 3.5 with Charouz, dominating the championship with six race wins and finishing 44 points ahead of his closest rival, Matevos Isaakyan. He served as a test driver in Formula E for Jaguar from 2017 to 2019.
Fittipaldi made his Formula One debut at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, replacing an injured Romain Grosjean for Haas and becoming the fourth member of the Fittipaldi family to compete in Formula One. He finished seventeenth. He made a further appearance in 2020 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, qualifying nineteenth and finishing nineteenth.
In 2018, Fittipaldi began a part-time IndyCar Series career with Dale Coyne Racing, replacing Zachary Claman DeMelo in six races. He achieved his first top-ten finish at Portland and finished 26th in the standings. He returned to IndyCar in 2021 for oval races, sharing the No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR car with Romain Grosjean. Fittipaldi was the fastest rookie qualifier for the 2021 Indianapolis 500. On 23 October 2023, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing announced Fittipaldi would drive the No. 30 Honda for the 2024 IndyCar Series. At the opening round of the season, the 2024 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, he finished thirteenth.
Outside of open-wheel racing, Fittipaldi competed in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters in 2019, finishing fifteenth in the drivers' standings with 22 points and achieving a best result of fifth at Misano. He also competed in the European Le Mans Series from 2021 to 2022.
In May 2018, Fittipaldi suffered a high-speed crash at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, breaking both legs. Doctors initially projected a year’s recovery, but he returned to racing approximately two and a half months later after rehabilitation aided by IndyCar medical personnel and custom carbon-fiber braces. Fittipaldi has competed in the LMP2 class of the IMSA SportsCar Championship since 2023 for Rick Ware, Inter Europol, and Pratt Miller. He joined Pratt Miller Motorsports full-time in LMP2 for the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship and signed with Vector Sport to compete in the 2025 European Le Mans Series.
Fittipaldi has served as a Haas reserve driver since 2019, and on 1 October 2025, it was announced that he would become a development driver for the upcoming Cadillac F1 Team, set to debut in 2026. During his time in endurance racing, Fittipaldi underwent significant weight loss to optimize car performance, later gaining about 20 lb to meet the physical demands of IndyCar.
The corpus source is a Wikipedia article on Pietro Fittipaldi. No primary archives, autobiographies, period programmes, or specialist publications were consulted.
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