Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul were the defending rally winners. Their team, Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT, were the reigning manufacturers' winners.[3]Mads Østberg and Torstein Eriksen were the defending winners in the WRC-2 category, while Eric Camilli and François-Xavier Buresi were the defending rally winners in the WRC-3 category.[4] Østberg and Eriksen did not defend their WRC-2 title as they did not enter the rally. Camilli and Buresi did not defend their WRC-3 win as they entered in the WRC-2 category.[5]
The following crews were entered into the rally. The event was open to crews competing in the World Rally Championship, its support categories, the World Rally Championship-2 and World Rally Championship-3, and privateer entries that were not registered to score points in any championship. Ten crews were entered under Rally1 regulations, as were eighteen Rally2 crews; of these, seven were nominated to score points in the World Rally Championship-2 and eleven in the World Rally Championship-3.
The route for the 2021 rally covers 257.64 km (160.09 mi) in competitive stages and is the shortest in the event's history. The rally was originally planned to be run over sixteen stages, but was reduced to fifteen amid concerns over organisers' ability to run the event during the COVID-19 pandemic,[9] and ultimately to fourteen so as to respect the curfew established throughout France from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.[1]
^Tänak and Järveoja were forced to retire after getting a puncture. The puncture meant that they did not have enough rubber on one of their wheels for the car to be considered road legal. As a result, they could not complete the liaison between special stages.[10]
