In 1997 he moved to Britain and competed in Formula Vauxhall Junior; Pizzonia placed second, and won the Winter Festival.

After impressive testing performances, he was signed by the Jaguar team to partner Mark Webber for 2003, replacing the axed Pedro de la Rosa[3] .

Before the German Grand Prix, it was announced that Pizzonia would take over from Marc Gené, who had been filling in for the injured Ralf Schumacher.

He claimed a further 2 points in Italy (during which he achieved the fastest ever recorded top speed in a F1 race at the time, 369.9 km/h, until Juan Pablo Montoya eclipsed this record the following year), but with the announcement of Ralf Schumacher's return for the Chinese Grand Prix, Pizzonia's racing was over for the year.

Prior to the 2005 season, Pizzonia was in a virtual shoot-out with German Nick Heidfeld for the second race seat at Williams alongside Webber.

Pizzonia also took the drive in the Brazilian Grand Prix, but his race was over before the first corner after taking out his own teammate Mark Webber resulting from a collision with David Coulthard.

After that, he returned to Brazil and entered into competition in Stock Car Brasil, a Brazilian national championship, from July.

[4] He has competed in the series every year since then, and has also raced in Superleague Formula (SC Corinthians) and the FIA GT1 World Championship.

In 2012, Pizzonia made a one-off guest appearance in the Auto GP World Series when the championship visited the Brazilian Curitiba circuit.