A fortnight after Niki Lauda victory at Monaco the F1 teams were in action again at Zolder. Mario Andretti was away at Indianapolis and so there was no Parnelli while Roelof Wunderink had hurt himself in a Formula 5000 accident at Zandvoort was out of action and so Ensign did not appear. Graham Hill had decided to retire and with Rolf Stommelen still recovering from his injuries in Barcelona he had signed François Migault and Tony Brise to drive his cars.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Niki Lauda with Carlos Pace (Brabham) alongside. Vittorio Brambilla did well in the Beta March and lined up third ahead of Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari), Tom Pryce (Shadow), Carlos Reutemann (Brabham), the impressive Brise and Emerson Fittipaldi (McLaren). The top 10 was completed by Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell) and Jean-Pierre Jarier (Shadow).

At the start Pace jumped into the lead ahead of Lauda. Brambilla was third with Regazzoni, Reutemann and Scheckter scrapping over fourth. Brise disappeared early on with engine troubles and Scheckter worked his way ahead of Reutemann and Regazzoni. At the front Brambilla surprised everyone by passing both Lauda and then Pace to lead the race. Lauda overtook Pace as well and then went after Brambilla and on the sixth lap the Ferrari went ahead. Scheckter soon overtook Pace as well and was soon with Brambilla and he took second place on lap nine. The order remained unchanged for the whole of the middle part of the race but on lap 49 Brambilla pitted for new tires and left third place to Reutemann. Fittipaldi was fourth but he was unable to hold back Depailler, Regazzoni and Pryce in the closing laps.