Dear HNuer, a fundamental theorem on Chow groups describes the relation between the Chow ring $CH^\ast (\mathbb P(\mathcal E))$ of $X=\mathbb P(\mathcal E)$ and that $CH^\ast (Y)$ of $Y$.

 If we call $p:\mathbb P(\mathcal E) \to Y $ the projection and $\xi$ the relative hyperplane bundle
 $\mathcal O_{\mathbb P(\mathcal E)}(1)$, we have

$$ CH^\ast(\mathbb P(\mathcal E) )= CH^\ast (Y)[\xi]/  < \xi^n +c_1 (p^\ast \mathcal E)\xi^{n-1} +\cdots+c_n (p^\ast \mathcal E)>              $$
In particular $CH^1(\mathbb P(\mathcal E) )=p^\ast CH^1(Y)\oplus \mathbb Z \xi. $

If you remember that for locally factorial varieties  you have $Pic(P)=CH^1 (P)$ , your formula is proved under this hypothesis .

If $Y$ has bad singularities, say not semi-normal,  I wouldn't bet on the correctness of the formula since then there exist varieties such that the canonical morphism 
$\pi^\ast: Pic Y \to Pic Y \times \mathbb A^1 $ is *not* surjective.