There was only a week between Monaco (where Keke Rosberg had scored a memorable victory for Williams) and the Belgian GP but no-one was complaining because the race was being held at the revived Spa track, shortened but retaining a flavor of the famous old track. There was one change to the driver lineup with F1 debutante Thierry Boutsen joining the Arrows team in place of Chico Serra, bringing the team much-needed sponsorship from a variety of sponsors.

Qualifying resulted in pole position going to World Championship leader Alain Prost (Renault) with Patrick Tambay (Ferrari) just one-hundredths of a second behind him. Andrea de Cesaris was third in his Marlboro-sponsored Alfa Romeo with Nelson Piquet fourth in his Brabham-BMW. Then came René Arnoux (Ferrari), Riccardo Patrese (Brabham-BMW), Manfred Winkelhock (ATS-BMW), Eddie Cheever (Renault) and Keke Rosberg (the fastest of the normally-aspirated cars again). Marc Surer again showed that the Arrows was a good car with 10th place.

At the start there was confusion as the starter decided to abort the departure because the grid was not lined up well. Several drivers (notably de Cesaris) took off as if it was a normal start. Everyone returned to the grid but rather than following the rules and simply restarting immediately the field returned, mechanics were out on the grid and cars were being topped up with fuel (which was not allowed). The mess was finally sorted out and a new start took place with de Cesaris making a fine start to grab the lead from Prost, Tambay, Piquet, Winkelhock and the rest. Patrese disappeared almost immediately with an engine failure.

De Cesaris continued to lead until the mid-race pit stops but the stop was a long one and so Prost went into the lead when all the refueling had been completed and any threat from de Cesaris disappeared soon afterwards when his engine failed. This left Piquet second with Tambay third Arnoux fourth and then the two Williams's with Rosberg ahead of Jacques Laffite.