The driver lineup was the same as in Belgium and so there were 27 cars fighting for the 20 places on the grid. Belgian GP winner Didier Pironi was on pole position in his Ligier ahead of the two Williams FW07Bs with Carlos Reutemann ahead of Alan Jones. Nelson Piquet was fourth on the grid and then came Jacques Laffite (Ligier), Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari), the Alfa Romeos of Patrick Depailler and Bruno Giacomelli, Jean-Pierre Jarier's Tyrrell and Alain Prost, showing well in the difficult McLaren. His teammate John Watson failed to qualify as did Ricardo Zunino in the second Brabham, while it was a bad day for Renault (with Jean-Pierre Jabouille 16th and René Arnoux 20th and World Champion Jody Scheckter who was 17th in his Ferrari.

At the start of the race Pironi took the lead from Reutemann, Jones, Laffite, Depailler and Piquet. Behind them there was a huge accident as Derek Daly (Tyrrell) ran into the back of Giacomelli's Alfa Romeo and spun into Prost,s McLaren. The car was then launched into the air and landed on top of Jarier's Tyrrell. Also damaged in the carnage was Jan Lammers's ATS.

While this was happening Jones had overtaken Reutemann. The order then remained unchanged until lap 24 when Jones suffered a differential failure and retired, leaving Reutemann in second place with Laffite third, Depailler fourth and Piquet fifth.

It then began to rain. Pironi seemed to have everything under control but then his gearbox began jumping out of third and on lap 55 this caught him out and he crashed coming out of Casino Square. Depailler had also disappeared with an engine failure and so Reutemann was left in the lead with Laffite in a solid second. Piquet was third but not really a threat and everyone else was a lap down. This is how they finished with Jochen Mass fourth in his Arrows, Villeneuve fifth and Emerson Fittipaldi (Fittipaldi) in sixth position.