The invention provides a vehicle reference trajectory tracking method and system. The vehicle reference trajectory tracking method comprises the steps: acquiring the current speed of a vehicle, the yaw velocity of the vehicle, the curvature of a reference trajectory, the relative course angle deviation and the relative transverse position deviation of the vehicle and the reference trajectory and the expected performance index of a vehicle motion controller in real time; according to the current vehicle speed, the vehicle yaw velocity, the curvature, the relative course angle deviation, the relative transverse position deviation and the expected performance index, calculating to obtain an expected yaw velocity; and calculating to obtain a final steering wheel angle of the vehicle accordingto the expected yaw velocity, and controlling the vehicle to output the final steering wheel angle. The controller is directly designed according to expected performance indexes of the motion controller, and the method has the advantages of being good in control effect, small in parameter adjustment workload, capable of shortening the development period and the like.