The second year of the new formula allowed most of the teams to continue to develop the machinery which had appeared the previous year: Lancia worked on the D50, Maserati on the 250F and Mercedes-Benz on the W196 while Ferrari developed both the Type 625 and the 553. The driver market saw Stirling Moss move from Maserati to be Juan-Manuel Fangio's team mate at Mercedes-Benz. At the same time Mike Hawthorn has left Ferrari to join the new Vanwall team, leaving Ferrari with Froilan Gonzalez, Giuseppe Farina and Maurice Trintigant, Maserati recruited Jean Behra to run with Harry Schell, Luigi Musso and Roberto Mieres while Lancia added Eugenio Castellotti to the roster, alongside Alberto Ascari and Gigi Villoresi.

The cars seemed closely matched and on the front row of the grid was one of each of the cars from the big four teams: Gonzalez just ahead of Ascari, Fangio and Behra.

Race day was extremely hot and Fangio delighted the locals by getting into the lead on the first lap with Ascari and a fast-starting Stirling Moss chasing him. Then came Gonzalez and Farina.

Fangio's lead did not last long. Ascari challenged him and got ahead only to lose the lead soon afterwards to a flying Gonzalez. The racing stayed close in the early laps but on lap 22 Ascari made a mistake and crashed. His Lancia team mate Villoresi was already out because of early mechanical trouble and had taken over Castellotti's car but before Ascari could claim the car, Villoresi crashed, ending the Lancia challenge.

Moss disappeared with a fuel feed problem and a few laps later Trintignant went out with an engine problem.

And then the heat began to tell on the drivers. Farina pitted because he was exhausted, his car being taken over by Ferrari's spare driver Umberto Maglioli. Then Gonzalez came into the pits and so a revived Farina was sent out in his place. Fangio had to stop for some water and this enabled Schell and Mieres to go ahead although an exhausted Schell was soon handing over to Behra. Mieres ran into technical trouble and that meant that Fangio was soon back in the lead.

He was caught in the closing laps by Gonzalez - who was back in his own car which had been driven in the interim by Farina and Trintignant - but he then had an accident and ruined his chances. He did manage to rejoin and handed the car back to Farina who brought the Ferrari home in second place.

Third place in this complicated race went to Farina's original car which had been driven by Maglioli and then handed on to Trintignant before being handed back to Maglioli.