Most of the teams went from the French Grand Prix at Rouen to a non-championship event at Sables d'Olonne where Gordini's Jean Behra crashed and broke his shoulder blade. This meant that at Silverstone Behra was replaced in the Gordini factory team by Maurice Trintignant. Ferrari entered its usual three factory cars for Alberto Ascari, Giuseppe Farina and Piero Taruffi. There were three cars from HWM for Peter Collins, Lance Macklin and Duncan Hamilton while Connaught entered four of its Lea Francis-engined Connaught Type As. There were a few Cooper-Bristols - notably with Mike Hawthorn driving one of them while Stirling Moss was in the ERA. The rest of the field was an assortment of private Ferraris and Maseratis.

Farina, Ascari and Taruffi shared the 4-3-4 front row with Manzon while Ken Downing's Connaught shared the second row with the Cooper-Bristols of Reg Parnell and Hawthorn.

The race was dominated by Ferrari with Ascari and Farina leading away. Taruffi made a bad start and had to fight his way past a mixture of Connaughts and Cooper-Bristols. He was soon third ahead of Dennis Poore's Connaught and Hawthorn. Farina then hit trouble and had to pit for a change of spark plugs but his car refused to run properly and he finished sixth.

When Poore stopped for fuel Hawthorn moved to third and stayed there until the finish. While the British fans had something to cheer, it had been a dominant performance by Ascari.