Born in Lyon, Larrousse began his motorsport career in rallying before transitioning to circuit racing. He won the French Rally Championship driving an Alpine A110, and his biggest international rally results came in a Porsche 911. He won the Tour de Corse in 1969 and finished second at the Monte Carlo Rally in 1969, 1970, and 1972. On gravel, he achieved a sixth place at the 1970 RAC Rally.
Larrousse's circuit career gathered momentum in 1971 when he partnered Vic Elford to win the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 1000 km Nürburgring, both in Porsches — the Sebring win in a 917K and the Nürburgring in a 908/03. These results earned him a place in the Matra-Simca sports car programme. Driving alongside Henri Pescarolo, Larrousse won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1973 and again in 1974, both times in the Matra-Simca MS670. The two back-to-back Le Mans wins defined his reputation as one of France's most accomplished endurance drivers of the era.
His Formula One appearances were limited. He participated in two Grands Prix in 1974, debuting on 12 May, driving Brabham BT42s for Scuderia Finotto, but failed to score any championship points.
Following his retirement from competition, Larrousse moved into team management. He ran the Elf Switzerland operation in the European Formula Two Championship, developing administrative skills that would prove essential in the higher levels of motorsport.
From 1984 to 1985, Larrousse managed the Renault Formula One team during the final two seasons of the French manufacturer's original factory campaign. The team had previously been a pioneering force in Formula One with its turbocharged engines, and Larrousse oversaw its wind-down as a full works entry.
In 1987, Larrousse co-founded the Formula One constructor that bore his name, sharing ownership with various partners through the team's eight-year lifespan. The team achieved modest but genuine results, with its best Constructor's Championship finish being sixth place in 1990. That season represented the high point of the team's competitive trajectory. In subsequent years the team struggled financially, increasingly relying on pay-drivers to cover costs. Plans to participate in the 1995 Formula One season were announced but could not be realised due to lack of funds, and the team withdrew from Formula One after 1994.
Larrousse's dual legacy sits in two distinct phases: the first as a winning driver at the highest level of endurance racing — the back-to-back Le Mans victories with Pescarolo placed him among the elite French drivers of the 1970s — and the second as a team manager who sustained a French Formula One presence through the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Larrousse F1 team, while never a frontrunner, remained a consistent mid-field constructor across most of its existence and gave numerous drivers their Formula One opportunities during that period.