There was considerable speculation that Ronnie Peterson would be switching to the Shadow team because of Lotus's lack of performance but he remained a Lotus driver in Brazil where Jean-Pierre Jarier took his second consecutive pole position in the Shadow. Emerson Fittipaldi, the winner of the first race at fortnight earlier in Argentina, was second in his McLaren while Carlos Reutemann (Brabham) and Niki Lauda (Ferrari) shared the second row. Then came Carlos Pace (Brabham) and Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari) followed by James Hunt (Hesketh), Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depailler (Tyrrells) and Jochen Mass (McLaren). With Mario Andretti having decided to use Goodyear tires, the Akron firm had a monopoly for the first time.

At the start Fittipaldi had too much wheelspin and Reutemann passed him and took the lead from Jarier at the first corner, while Pace also made a good start to take third place ahead of Regazzoni, Lauda, Scheckter and the slow-starting Fittipaldi.

Jarier had no intention of letting Reutemann win and on lap five he went ahead and began to pull away, leaving Reutemann to fall into the clutches of his team mate Pace. On lap 14 the Brazilian went ahead and began to create a gap because Reutemann was struggling with his tires. In the laps which followed he dropped behind Regazzoni, Lauda and Mass With only 10 laps to go and Jarier ahead by 25 seconds, the Shadow suddenly began to misfire and the gap to Pace began to reduce. On lap 33 the Shadow's engine stopped. Pace took the lead and went on to win his F1 victory. There was much celebrating in the grandstands as Emerson Fittipaldi was in second place, having overtaken Regazzoni a couple of laps earlier. The Swiss Ferrari driver was struggling with his handling and lost third to Mass.

Regazzoni and Lauda finished fourth and fifth while the final point went to James Hunt.