After a break of nearly five months after the opening round of the World Championship in Argentina, the teams gathered for the second event at Zandvoort. There had been a string of non-championship events in the interim with Maserati increasingly a force against the factory Ferraris. At Syracuse in March Baron Emanuel de Graffenried won when all four factory Ferraris retired but Alberto Ascari won at Pau and Bordeaux, Mike Hawthorn won the International and Ulster Trophies and Giuseppe Farina won in Naples. When the Ferraris did not appear other scored victories but Enzo Ferrari's cars were still dominant. For the Dutch GP Ferrari had four cars for Ascari, farina, Hawthorn and Gigi Villoresi while Maserati entered three factory cars for Juan-Manuel Fangio, Froilan Gonzalez and Felice Bonetto. There was a fourth machine for Baron Emanuel de Graffenried. Gordini ran three cars for Maurice Trintignant, Roberto Mieres and Harry Schell and Connaught ran three factory machines for Roy Salvadori, Stirling Moss and Kenneth McAlpine. A fourth car was run by Johnny Claes. There were HWMs for Lance Macklin and Peter Collins and Ken Wharton had a single Cooper-Bristol.

The racing circuit had been resurfaced and crumbled badly but much was expected in the race as the practice times of the first six had been close but pole position man Alberto Ascari took the lead and led from flag to flag. Villoresi was second in the early part of the race but then switched with Farina several times before going out at three-quarter distance with a throttle problem. Gonzalez look menacing but retired with suspension trouble so took over Bonetto's car and after a storming drive finished third ahead of Hawthorn.