It was the eighth race of the 1978 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1978 International Cup for F1 Constructors, and the last Formula One Swedish Grand Prix to date.

At the front, Lauda and Andretti were battling for first place, until the American made an error and was forced to let the Austrian through, and eventually dropped out due to a broken valve on his engine.

Once Jean-Pierre Jabouille dropped oil onto the track, the Brabham was in a race of its own, seemingly unaffected by the slippery surface.

In Lauda's biography, To Hell And Back, he wrote that, whilst other cars had to reduce speed to drive carefully over the oil, the Brabhams could simply accelerate (as the fan was activated by the gearbox to get around regulations, this meant that higher speed produced much higher grip) through the affected parts of the track.

1978 was the year that Ecclestone became chief executive of the Formula One Constructors' Association and led it through the FISA–FOCA war that would lead to the downfall of FISA and give FOCA the right to negotiate television contracts for the Grands Prix, effectively giving Ecclestone commercial control of Formula One which continued for several decades.