The Lancia team made its first appearance at the final race of the season with a pair of the new D50 chassis for Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi. Mercedes-Benz fielded World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio, Karl Kling and Hans Herrmann as usual while Ferrari was running Mike Hawthorn and Maurice Trintignant. Maserati had cars for Stirling Moss, Luigi Musso, Sergio Mantovani and Roberto Mières. Peter Collins turned up with a Vanwall but crashed the car badly and so did not take part in the race.

Practice saw Ascari on pole position in the new Lancia with Fangio alongside with Hawthorn and a surprising Harry Schell (Maserati) completing the front row while the second row featured Villoresi, Moss and Musso. At the start Schell took the lead from Hawthorn, Ascari and a fast-starting Maurice Trintignant. This lasted only a couple of laps before Ascari moved ahead but Villoresi went out with a brake problem and within a few laps the leading Lancia was in the pits with clutch trouble.

This put Schell back into the lead but he still had Trintignant and Hawthorn with him. Eventually Schell gave in to the pressure and spun, dropping to fourth behind Fangio. He would retire later with a gearbox problem. Trintignant also ran into trouble and so Hawthorn was left alone in the lead with a big advantage over Fangio, who was having trouble because his car was spraying oil back into the cockpit. This enabled Musso to catch and pass the World Champion but Fangio held on to finish third.