Hill started the race alongside Coulthard on the front row, amidst pressure from the British media for not being "forceful" enough in battles.

[5] The race, originally scheduled to be held as the third round of the season on 16 April 1995, was moved to October as the local infrastructure and communications were badly damaged from the Great Hanshin earthquake.

[11] At a Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Motor Sport Council meeting on October 19 to discuss driver etiquette, they opted against introducing new rules on the issue.

Formula One's governing body emphasised that the International Sporting Code would be enforced on the basis that drivers are free to drive as they wish "provided they do not deliberately endanger another driver or repeatedly obstruct him on a straight", following incidents during the year involving Hill and Schumacher.

[10][13] Jan Magnussen was drafted into the McLaren team to replace Mika Häkkinen because of the Finn's operation for appendicitis.

[16] Délétraz was replaced as he had not made agreed payment instalments to the Pacific team for the privilege of the drive.

[17] Pacific had originally intended to run local driver Katsumi Yamamoto in place of Délétraz, but he was not granted an FIA Super Licence and so Gachot retook the seat.

The Ferrari cars were fourth and fifth fastest; Gerhard Berger ahead of Jean Alesi, with McLaren driver Mark Blundell rounding out the top six.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jean-Christophe Boullion were eighth and tenth in the Sauber cars, with Rubens Barrichello ninth in the Jordan, two seconds off the pace.

[1] Schumacher was third in the Benetton, edging closer to the Williams drivers throughout both days of qualifying by steadily reducing the downforce on his car.

His last run, right at the end of the second session, pressured Coulthard into leaving the pit lane to cover the German.

[1] Hill drove the spare Williams car along the inside of the start–finish straight in an effort to clean up his grid position on the dusty side of the track.

[1] The remote and inaccessible nature of the circuit and the fact that the Japanese Grand Prix took place just one week later resulted in a meagre race-day crowd of only 15,000 spectators.

[12] Schumacher passed Berger for fourth position on lap five, and immediately began closing on Hill in third, who himself was only a few tenths behind Alesi.

[9] Hill lost additional time with a sticking refuelling valve, causing his stop to last almost twice as long as Schumacher's.

[1] With Alesi and Hill held up by the slower runners on two-stop strategies in front, Schumacher pulled away and closed in on Coulthard.

[26][27] Irvine made a pit stop at the end of lap 25, allowing Hill to resume his chase of Alesi unimpeded.

The Ferrari of Alesi then dropped further back as teammate Berger passed him at the hairpin for fourth position on lap 45.

Coulthard was unable to capitalise on the performance advantage offered by the new tyres after the stop due to lapped traffic getting in his way.

[27][28] The German made his third and final pit stop on lap 60 with a 21-second advantage, exiting in front of Coulthard to lead the race.

[5][26] Schumacher opened the gap to 15 seconds, and won the race after 83 laps to secure his eighth victory of the season in a time of 1:48:49.972s.

[12] After his impressive qualifying performance, Irvine was heading for eighth place, but made an unscheduled pit stop on lap 72 and dropped to eleventh.

[12] Off-camera while going through parc fermé, Schumacher and Hill renewed their argument from the Belgian Grand Prix over what degree of blocking was acceptable after their first corner incident.

[27] Hill refuted Schumacher's claims, saying: Michael wasn't happy with what I did a couple of times in the race and he has told me that he is unhappy with my driving.

[12]Despite Hill's comments, he endured continued criticism by the British media after the poor performance; speculation brewed that Williams were going to replace him with Frentzen for the 1996 season.

[30] Schumacher subsequently changed his opinion of the incident after watching video footage prior to the Japanese race and no longer blamed Hill for it.