Zorzi was born in Ziano di Fiemme, Trentino, near the Austrian border, the son of a miner. He trained as an engineer with Pirelli before turning to motor racing.
Zorzi began racing in Italian Formula Three in 1972, driving a Tecno for Scuderia Mirabella. He debuted at Monza on 3 September but failed to qualify for the final.
In 1973 he raced with a Brabham BT38C and then a Quasar, collecting finishes of 12th at Vallelunga, 13th at Casale, 10th at Misano, and a best of sixth at Varano in a Brabham BT35.
In 1974, campaigning a GRD 374 for Scuderia Mirabella alongside team-mate Giorgio Francia, he achieved sixth at Casale, fifth at Monza beating Francia, fifth at Monaco in a March 743, 13th at the Nürburgring in a race won by Francia, fifth again at Casale, and sixth at Monza. He finished tenth in the championship.
For 1975, Zorzi helped develop a Formula Three engine for Lancia, built by the Repetto company and fitted to his GRD 374 in place of the original Ford unit. With the GRD-Lancia he took his first podium, third place at Varano. Despite still lacking an Italian championship win, he entered the European Formula Three Monaco Grand Prix support race in May. Having qualified second to Larry Perkins, he won heat two by eleven seconds. In a chaotic final, Tony Brise and Alex Ribeiro collided ahead of him; he finished second on the road, 21 seconds behind Conny Andersson. When Andersson was penalised one minute for a jump start, Zorzi inherited the victory by just 0.89 seconds over the Safir of Patrick Nève. Later in the season he collected sixth places at the Nürburgring and Ring Djursland in the European championship.
The Monaco victory opened the door to Formula One. Later in 1975 Zorzi arranged a deal with Frank Williams to drive at the Italian Grand Prix. The Williams team was using pay drivers to race the ageing FW03, which had failed to score points that season. Zorzi qualified 22nd of 28 entrants, just 0.71 seconds slower than team-mate Jacques Laffite in the newer FW04. Running as high as 12th, he was delayed by a puncture and finished 14th and last, six laps behind winner Clay Regazzoni. That race was the FW03's last before Williams sold it to Loris Kessel.
The arrangement continued at the first race of 1976, the Brazilian Grand Prix. The team was by then 60% owned by Walter Wolf and renamed Wolf-Williams. Zorzi drove the FW04 while new team-mate Jacky Ickx drove the new FW05. Zorzi qualified 17th of 22, outqualifying 19th-placed Ickx, and finished ninth of 14 classified finishers, just 2.44 seconds behind Ickx. His sponsorship money ran out and he was replaced by Michel Leclère. For the rest of 1976 he returned to Formula Three with the Modus team and raced sports cars, including an eighth-place finish in the 1976 6 Hours of Vallelunga in a Jolly Club-entered Lancia Stratos during the World Championship for Makes.
Zorzi returned to Formula One in 1977 with Shadow as team-mate to Welsh driver Tom Pryce, backed by Italian sponsor Franco Ambrosio. Ambrosio required an Italian driver as a condition of his financial support, and Zorzi was chosen on that basis. At the opening round in Argentina, driving the team's older DN5B, he qualified last of 21 entrants and retired on lap three with a gearbox failure after climbing to 18th at the start.
At the Brazilian Grand Prix, Zorzi qualified 18th and finished sixth of seven classified finishers in a race of attrition, earning his only World Championship point — in only his fourth Grand Prix. Pryce had been running second behind eventual winner Carlos Reutemann when his engine failed with seven laps remaining.
Tragedy struck at the third round in South Africa. Driving Shadow's new DN8, Zorzi qualified 20th and was running near the back when he pulled off the track with a fuel leak caused by a broken metering unit. As he attempted to detach the oxygen pipe from his helmet before exiting the car, a fire erupted at the rear. Zorzi got out and activated his on-board fire extinguisher, extinguishing the flames. Seconds later, with the fire out, two marshals ran across the track carrying hand-held extinguishers. Crossing beyond a blind brow, the first marshal narrowly avoided passing cars; the second, Frederick Jansen Van Vuuren, was struck and killed by Pryce's car. Van Vuuren's fire extinguisher struck Pryce on the helmet, causing fatal head and neck injuries.
The British press and parts of the Shadow team blamed Zorzi, suggesting his movements in the cockpit led the marshals to believe he needed immediate assistance. Pryce was replaced by Alan Jones, who outperformed Zorzi at the following two races. At Long Beach, Zorzi qualified 20th and retired with a gearbox failure; in Spain he qualified 24th and retired with engine failure. Arriving at Monaco for the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix, Zorzi found Riccardo Patrese's name on his car: he had been replaced by Patrese, another Ambrosio protégé, without being informed.
After Formula One, Zorzi raced occasionally in sports cars in Italy. He was a regular at the 1000 km Monza, winning the event in 1979 in a Lola T286 shared with Marco Capoferri. In 1980 he qualified on pole position in the Capoferri-Ford shared with Claudio Francisci, claiming fastest lap before the car retired. His last appearance at the event was 1985, when the Porsche 956 shared with Oscar Larrauri and Massimo Sigala for Brun Motorsport finished sixth.
He also made a one-off appearance in the Aurora AFX Formula One championship in 1980, driving an Arrows A1 for Charles Clowes Racing at the Monza Lottery GP. He qualified eighth but retired after a collision.
After retiring from racing, Zorzi returned to Pirelli, running a driving school for the company at Binetto in southern Italy.
Zorzi died on 15 May 2015, aged 68, in hospital in Magenta, Lombardy, after a long illness. His funeral took place on 18 May in his birthplace of Ziano. He was survived by his son, Andrea.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.