Citroën Sport began developing the Xsara Kit Car in 1998 following the company's withdrawal from rally raid competition. Philippe Bugalski won the French Rally Championship in both 1998 and 1999, and Sébastien Loeb won it in 2001. The team contested selected WRC asphalt rounds with the Xsara Kit Car from 1998, and Bugalski achieved a notable outright win at Rally Catalunya in 1999 against more powerful four-wheel-drive World Rally Cars — a result widely credited with influencing the FIA to ban the Kit Car class from WRC competition.
Citroën converted Xsara Kit Cars into four-wheel-drive specification and ran as Automobiles Citroën from 2001, with Jesús Puras winning on Corsica and Loeb recording his first WRC start in a full-power car at Sanremo. For 2002, Citroën contested eight of the fourteen rounds; Loeb won his first WRC rally in Germany and the team secured a third-place result on the Safari Rally with Thomas Radstrom.
The team entered as the Citroën Total World Rally Team in 2003, competing for a full manufacturers' championship for the first time. Signed from Ford, Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz joined Loeb, and the team opened the season with a 1-2-3 finish at the Monte Carlo Rally. They won the manufacturers' title in their first full year of entry. Loeb finished second in the drivers' standings to Petter Solberg, but from 2004 onward he dominated the championship almost without interruption.
Between 2004 and 2012, Loeb won the drivers' title every season, a record nine consecutive championships. Citroën supported his campaigns with the Xsara WRC, Citroën C4 WRC, and Citroën DS3 WRC across successive generations of car. Particularly dominant years included 2008, when Loeb won eleven rallies to break his own single-season record, and 2010, when Loeb took his seventh consecutive title. The team took sabbaticals in 2006 and 2016 to focus development resources on new car programs.
Mikko Hirvonen replaced Loeb as the team's second lead driver from 2012 following Ford's withdrawal. Loeb contested only four rounds in 2013 before retiring from full-time WRC competition; his farewell at Rallye de France ended in a roll. Dani Sordo claimed the team's sole win of 2013 at Rallye Deutschland. Kris Meeke joined the team toward the end of 2013 and scored his first WRC victory at Rally Argentina in 2015.
Norwegian driver Mads Østberg joined for 2014, and the team finished second in the manufacturers' championship — their first season without a race win after thirteen successful seasons. After announcing a development sabbatical in 2016, Citroën returned for 2017 with the new C3 WRC. Sébastien Ogier rejoined the team for 2019 alongside Esapekka Lappi.
The 2019 season proved disappointing in competitive terms, and at its conclusion Ogier left the team by invoking a performance clause in his contract. Citroën announced it would leave the WRC entirely, citing the inability to recruit top-tier drivers, ending the marque's involvement in rally competition that had spanned more than two decades at the highest level.
The team campaigned a succession of cars reflecting WRC regulation changes: the Citroën Xsara Kit Car, Xsara T4/Xsara WRC, C4 WRC, DS3 WRC, and C3 WRC. The DS3 WRC, introduced for 2011, underpinned the team's final years of championship contention.
Citroën's WRC record — anchored by eight manufacturers' championships and Loeb's nine drivers' titles — represents the most sustained period of factory dominance in the sport's history. The team's rivalry with Ford M-Sport and later Volkswagen Motorsport defined WRC competition across the 2000s and early 2010s. Loeb's nine consecutive titles with the team remain the benchmark against which all subsequent WRC champions are measured.