The Grand Prix was contested by 16 drivers and three official constructors, with Luigi Musso entered unofficially due to Ferrari withdrawing with safety concerns.

Maserati had a strong start to the season, outshining Ferrari in both the race and qualifying on multiple occasions.

He struggled with reliability issues such as a broken throttle linkage at Argentina and became ill just before the French Grand Prix.

[5] The track was 25.579 km (15.894 mi) long,[6] the longest circuit to ever host a Formula One World Championship round.

[1]: 8 The event took place at short notice due to the sudden cancellation of the Belgian and Dutch Grands Prix over disputes regarding fees.

[1]: 103  At the end of the sessions, Fangio set the quickest lap time of a 9:44.6 which gave him pole position.

[1]: 1 [3]: 60 A unique incident occurred when Jack Brabham's F2 Cooper was running short of fuel far from the pits and he pulled into a roadside petrol station and topped up.