The Italian Grand Prix at Monza was held only on the road circuit without the poorly constructed concrete banking this year, as it had caused problems for the Italian constructors the year before. The track used was very like the Monza of today, although without the chicanes. Ferrari was back in action for this most important of Italian races after boycotting Pescara and so it was a three-way fight between the Lancia-Ferraris, the Maseratis and the Vanwalls. The British cars were strong with pole position going to Stuart Lewis-Evans with Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks alongside him. Juan Manuel Fangio put his Maserati on the outside of the 4-3-4 grid while his teammates Jean Behra and Harry Schell shared row two with Peter Collins's Lancia-Ferrari. There were three more of the cars on row three with Wolfgang von Trips, Luigi Musso and Mike Hawthorn alongside the Scuderia Centro Sud Maserati of Masten Gregory.

Although, the Vanwalls went away from the grid at the front Behra moved up to second on the first lap. Fangio attached himself to the train of cars ahead of him and the five began to pull away from the rest of the field while indulging in a traditional Monza slipstreaming battle which saw the lead constantly changing between Moss and Behra. On lap seven, Fangio took the lead but he was soon toppled in favour of Moss, Brooks and then Lewis-Evans. On lap 20, Brooks dropped out of the fight with a sticking throttle. Then Lewis-Evans ran into trouble and pitted. This left Moss in the lead with Fangio and Behra behind him, although Behra would pit soon afterwards for new tyres. This moved Schell into third place but he disappeared with an oil leak which meant that third was passed on to Collins. At two-thirds distance, Collins ran into engine trouble and pitted. This promoted Hawthorn to third but a split fuel pipe dropped him to sixth in the closing laps, leaving third place to Von Trips.