Hill took his eighth win of the season, and with it the Drivers' Championship, after teammate and pole-sitter Jacques Villeneuve made a poor start and then retired when a wheel fell off.

[5] At the second start, Villeneuve made a poor getaway and fell to sixth behind Hill, Gerhard Berger, Häkkinen, Schumacher and Eddie Irvine.

Villeneuve, meanwhile, passed Irvine, set the fastest lap of the race and ran fourth before his right rear wheel came off on lap 37 due to a wheel bearing failure (this was the same incident that happened to team-mate Damon Hill during the British Grand Prix, according to BBC pit reporter Tony Jardine), putting him out of the race and handing the Drivers' Championship to Hill, already dropped by Williams for the following season.

A late fightback saw Schumacher close the gap to Hill, but Hill held on to win the race by 1.8 seconds, with Häkkinen a further 1.4 seconds back, while Berger recovered to finish fourth, Martin Brundle came fifth in his final Grand Prix, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen picked up the final point for sixth.

[citation needed] As Hill crossed the line to win the race and the championship, commentator Murray Walker said, "And I've got to stop, because I've got a lump in my throat.