There was considerable change between the last GP of 1961 and the start of the 1962 World Championship. Over the winter Tony Brooks had retired and his place alongside Graham Hill at BRM had gone to Ferrari's Ritchie Ginther. Ferrari had to replace not only Ginther but also the late Wolfgang Von Trips and decided on Giancarlo Baghetti and Ricardo Rodriguez. Jack Brabham quit Cooper to set up his own team, leaving Cooper to hire Tony Maggs to partner Bruce McLaren. Innes Ireland moved from the factory Lotus team to lead BRP, leaving Colin Chapman to sign up Trevor Taylor as Jim Clark's teammate.
A month before Zandvoort Stirling Moss had crashed his BRP Lotus 18 during the Easter Monday Glover Trophy non-championship F1 race at Goodwood. He would never race in F1 again.
From a technical point of view BRM had its own engines. While Lotus produced the 24 for its customers and then built the first monocoque chassis - the Lotus 25 - for the works team. Porsche had a flat 8 engine and Reg Parnell's Yeoman Credit team had a pair of new Lola chassis.
In qualifying John Surtees put on of the Lolas on pole position with Graham Hill and Clark alongside. Brabham shared the second row with his old teammate McLaren.
Clark took the lead at the start chased by G Hill and a fast-starting Gurney in his Porsche. Brabham soon disappeared when he hit a spinning Rodriguez and Surtees soon suffered a wishbone failure which caused a big accident, luckily without Surtees being injured.
Clark then hit clutch trouble and Graham Hill took the lead and when Gurney dropped back with a gear lever problem the BRM driver and McLaren went out with gearbox trouble he was left untroubled. Phil Hill ran second for much of the race but in the closing stages was passed by Taylor, who finished second despite colliding with Ginther while lapping him late in the race. Phil Hill and Baghetti gave Ferrari third and fourth.