With three races to go in the World Championship Niki Lauda (Ferrari) and James Hunt (McLaren) were 17 points apart (Hunt's disqualification from the British GP having been confirmed after the Italian GP). Hunt was not giving up, however, and took pole position in dominant fashion. The McLaren team decided to concentrate on the old M23s rather than continue to develop the difficult M26. Ferrari had left Carlos Reutemann out of the lineup and ran only two cars for Lauda and Clay Regazzoni while there had been a change at Brabham with Larry Perkins having been hired to stand in for Reutemann. Williams turned up with Chris Amon in a second car but after a spin he was hit by Harald Ertl's Hesketh and both cars seriously damaged. Amon suffered bruising to his legs and Ertl to his back. Otto Stuppacher appeared again but he was well off the pace and failed to qualify.

Alongside Hunt on the front row was Monza winner Ronnie Peterson (March) with his team mate Vittorio Brambilla third ahead of Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell). Mario Andretti (Lotus) shared the third row with Lauda while Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell) and Hans-Joachim Stuck (March) were on row four ahead of Jacques Laffite (Ligier) and Carlos Pace in the Brabham-Alfa Romeo. Clay Regazzoni was a disappointing 11th in his Ferrari.

At the start Peterson made a better start than Hunt and took the lead while Depailler beat Brambilla into the second corner to grab third. Andretti was fifth with Scheckter and Lauda behind him. By the end of the first lap Brambilla had been pushed down to fifth by Andretti and on the fourth lap he fell behind Scheckter as well.

On the ninth lap Hunt took the lead, while further back Lauda moved ahead of Brambilla to get into sixth place. Peterson was unable to keep up the pace and dropped behind Depailler, Andretti, Scheckter, Lauda and Jochen Mass in quick succession. he would finish a distant ninth.

The order remained unchanged until lap 59 when Lauda began to suffer handling problems and he let Mass, Regazzoni and Pace pass him.

Hunt's victory was thus complete and the World Championship gap closed to just eight points. Depailler finished second with Andretti third, Scheckter fourth, Mass fifth and Regazzoni sixth, just ahead of Pace.