In the 1982 World Rally season, Mouton finished a close second overall to Walter Röhrl, after wins in Portugal, Brazil and Greece, and helped Audi to its first manufacturers' title.

[6] Although Mouton began driving her father's Citroën 2CV when she was 14 years old,[7] she did not turn her interest to rallying until 1972, when her friend Jean Taibi asked her to practise the Tour de Corse with him.

[8] Mouton successfully defended her ladies' titles,[9] and also competed in circuit racing: In an all-female team with Christine Dacremont and Marianne Hoepfner, she won the two-litre prototype category of the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans.

[4] However, the car would prove successful and Mouton put in very consistent results, finishing eighth in the Tour de Corse in 1977 and fifth three years in a row from 1978 to 1980.

[20] Hannu Mikkola debuted the car in the Algarve Rally in October, and would have won by about thirty minutes had his times been officially registered.

[20] Mouton joined Freddy Kottulinsky for the final round of the Finnish Rally Championship, the Northern Lights, and also showed encouraging pace on the slippery surfaces.

[4] Audi announced their participation in eight events in 1981, although Mouton would not be entered in the Swedish Rally due to her lack of experience on driving on ice and snow.

[25] After a retirement due to a broken camshaft in the Tour de Corse,[23] Mouton set several fastest times at the Acropolis Rally in Greece.

[28] At the Rallye Sanremo in Italy, a mixed surface event with tarmac and gravel, Mouton took the lead when the local star Michele Cinotto crashed and held off Henri Toivonen and Ari Vatanen to take the victory.

On stage twelve in the small town Briançonnet in Provence, she hit a patch of ice and slid off the road, crashing into the stone wall of a large house at 110 km/h (70 mph).

[50] The Rally of Brazil was marred by the fatal accident of Brazilian driver Thomas Fuchs,[51] and featured chaotic conditions as parts of the course were not successfully closed for competition.

[52] Although only five teams made it to the finish, Mouton improved her title hopes by winning her duel with Röhrl after the German lost a wheel on the last day.

[55][56] Audi had not originally planned to participate in the African marathon events, but now found it necessary to enter the penultimate round, the Rallye Côte d'Ivoire, due to their title battles with Opel.

[57] After a first day of over 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) of racing in temperatures over 30 °C (86 °F), she was eight minutes clear of Mikkola and nearly half an hour ahead of title rival Röhrl.

[59] As a driver's seven best results counted towards the championship at the time, Mouton would only need a third place in the RAC Rally to take the title even if Röhrl would win.

[31] Röhrl had earlier conceded that he "would have accepted second place in the championship to Mikkola", but not to Mouton: "This is not because I doubt her capabilities as a driver, but because she is a woman.

[86] In the Rallye Sanremo, the tarmac stages were dominated by the Lancia 037 and Mouton finished seventh after suffering from fuel injection problems.

[84] For the 1984 season, Audi added two-time world champion Walter Röhrl to their star line-up and Mouton now had a part-time role,[91] competing in five WRC events.

[102] Outside the WRC, Mouton debuted in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the United States, driving an Audi Sport Quattro together with her usual co-driver Fabrizia Pons.

[103] After her main opponent Martin Schanche got hampered by a flat right front tyre she won the open rally category (now known as unlimited) in a record time and placed second overall, leaving behind several specialised V8 single-seaters that had normally dominated the race.

[108] After technical problems led to an early retirement at the Circuit of Ireland,[109] she finished second at the Welsh Rally behind Malcolm Wilson in another Quattro.

[114][116] Although her rallying year was a disappointment, Mouton made a successful return to the Pikes Peak, winning the event overall in her Sport Quattro.

[120] She contested the German Rally Championship and two WRC events in a Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, with which the marque had captured the previous year's world titles.

[123] Although the Hessen Rallye was stopped after the severe accident of Formula One driver Marc Surer, which claimed the life of his co-driver Michel Wyder, Mouton was declared the winner.

[11] Later in the same month, Mouton crowned her career by winning the last event of the German championship, the Drei-Städte-Rallye (Three Cities Rally), ahead of Armin Schwarz's MG Metro 6R4.

[122][133] In 1988, Mouton co-founded the international motorsport event Race of Champions with Fredrik Johnsson, in memory of Toivonen and to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the world championship for rally drivers.

[134] The event originally included the world's top rally drivers, but now features stars also from other disciplines, such as Formula One, NASCAR, Le Mans and MotoGP, competing against each other in identical cars.

[135] At the 1988 Rally of Tunisia, Mouton drove a 205 T16 Grand Raid chase car and transported spare parts for Vatanen and Henri Pescarolo, but also classified sixth overall.

[143] While announcing her retirement from rallying, Mouton stated her intention to start a family with Corsican sports journalist Claude Guarnieri.

[141] Rally journalist and historian Graham Robson credits Mouton, along with Pat Moss, as "the driver by whom all other females measure their skills and achievements".