Cougnaud began karting in 2002, primarily racing in France. He progressed through domestic kart championships before moving into car racing. In 2008 he finished sixth in the Formula Kart France series.
In 2009 Cougnaud entered the Formul'Academy Euro Series with Signatech, finishing fourteenth in the championship with eight points. He moved into Formula Renault competition the following year, entering four rounds of the Formula Renault 2.0 Suisse with ARTA Engineering. He took a single podium finish and finished ninth in the championship with 57 points.
In 2011 Cougnaud spread his programme across multiple series: four rounds of the Championnat VdeV with AB Sport Auto, fourteen rounds of the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps again with ARTA Engineering, and three races in the Formula Ford EuroCup with Cliff Dempsey Racing. He finished tenth in the Championnat VdeV and seventeenth in the Formula Renault Alps.
Cougnaud's most sustained single-seater campaign came in the European F3 Open Championship. In 2012 he competed in the Copa/Cup class for the Top F3 French team, driving a Dallara F308. He had a productive season, finishing third overall in the Cup class with eight podium finishes.
For 2013 he joined Italian team RP Motorsport, stepping up to a Dallara F312. His teammates included Santiago Urrutia, Alexander Toril, and Sandy Stuvik. The season started unevenly, with Cougnaud struggling with car setup in poor weather conditions and picking up penalties along the way — including a 30-second post-race penalty at Silverstone that cost him a fifth-place finish.
His form improved as the season progressed. At Jerez he finished fourth in the first race and third in the second. At Monza in October he delivered arguably his best performance of the campaign: pole position, fastest lap, and a second-place finish, narrowly beaten by his teammate Sandy Stuvik on the final lap. He concluded the season strongly at Barcelona, taking third in the first race and winning the second — his first Formula 3 victory.
In 2014 and 2015 Cougnaud competed in the Porsche Carrera Cup France, finishing tenth in his debut year and twelfth in 2015. The campaign represented a pivot toward GT and endurance racing that would define the next phase of his career.
Cougnaud made his debut in the European Le Mans Series in 2016, joining the Yvan Muller Racing team. The season proved highly successful: he won two races, taking victory at the prestigious Road to Le Mans race and then winning the final round of the season at Estoril. These two victories marked him out as a competitive force in LMP3 competition.
He extended his contract with Yvan Muller Racing into 2017. After two rounds of the season he sat second in the LMP3 classification, having recorded a second-place finish at Monza.
Cougnaud's career traces a path through multiple European series without a single defining championship title, but with consistent race-winning pace once he found the right machinery. His Formula 3 breakthrough at Barcelona in 2013 and his 2016 ELMS double win demonstrate that his trajectory has been one of gradual consolidation rather than early-burst stardom. His move into endurance racing with Graff Racing reflected an ambition to compete in the long-distance discipline that anchors the ACO's European calendar.
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