A week after the Austrian GP most of the F1 teams took part in a non-championship Swiss Grand Prix. This had to be held at Dijon as there were no racing circuits in Switzerland. The race was won by Switzerland's Clay Regazzoni although Jean-Pierre Jarier led half the race in his Shadow.

The teams then headed on to Monza where Niki Lauda needed only half a point more to win the World Championship, as a result of the decision to cancel the Canadian Grand Prix because of financial difficulties. The field was much as usual. Penske was absent following the death in Austria of Mark Donohue. Ensign ran two cars for Roelof Wunderink and Chris Amon while Frank Williams rented his second car to Renzo Zorzi.

Qualifying resulted in another pole for Niki Lauda with Regazzoni alongside on the front row. On the second row were Emerson Fittipaldi (McLaren) and Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell) while Jochen Mass (McLaren) and Tony Brise (Hill) shared the third row. Completing the top 10 were Carlos Reutemann (Brabham), James Hunt (Hesketh), Austrian winner Vittorio Brambilla (March) and Brabham's Carlos Pace.

Regazzoni took the lead from Lauda with Mass, Scheckter and the rest in hot pursuit. Scheckter got up to third before the end of the first lap but he lost control as the field arrived at the first chicane at the start of lap two. There followed a series of bumps as those behind hit one another and this meant that Mario Andretti (Parnelli), Brise, Brambilla and Ronnie Peterson (Lotus) were all out and a series of others had damage.

This did not bother the two Ferraris which were driving away from the field with ease. Reutemann was third but had Fittipaldi and Hunt right with him and Depailler not far behind. On lap 10 the Frenchman moved ahead of Hunt while four laps later Fittipaldi scrambled ahead of Reutemann. Depailler then went up an escape road and dropped behind Hunt and Tom Pryce (Shadow). Pryce and Hunt then battled for much of the middle part of the race while the order at the front remained stable until the closing laps when Fittipaldi caught and overtook Lauda for second place.

Lauda's third place was enough to make him the World Champion.