There had not been a World Championship Swiss GP since 1954 and as motor racing was banned in the country the race had to be held at Dijon. This had been tried as a non-championship event in 1975 but was not repeated. The success of French drivers in F1, however, led to pressure for more French races and so the idea was revived if not for the Swiss for the sake of convenience.

The field was unchanged from the race in Austria and to no great surprise the Renaults were 1-2 on the grid with Alain Prost beating René Arnoux. Riccardo Patrese was third fastest in the Brabham-BMW while Niki Lauda led the normally-aspirated runners in his McLaren in fourth place. The top 10 was completed by Andrea de Cesaris (Alfa Romeo), Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW), Derek Daly and Keke Rosberg in their Williams's, Bruno Giacomelli in his Alfa and Patrick Tambay in the single Ferrari. Tambay, however, was in trouble with a pinched nerve in his back and was unable to race.

At the start everyone waited to see if Brabham would finally use its planned pit stop strategy but at the start the two Renaults were off and away with Prost slipping ahead of Arnoux, leaving Patrese to head Lauda and Piquet. Nelson soon made his way up to third place, followed by Rosberg. On lap 11 Piquet passed Arnoux for second but then the order was settled until lap 40 when Piquet came into the pits to refuel. The stop dropped him to fifth place but there he stayed until the closing laps when Arnoux's race came to and end with injection problems. This moved Rosberg to second and he was closing fast on Prost. On the penultimate lap the Finn went ahead but the organizers were so inefficient that they forgot to show the chequered flag and so Rosberg had to do an extra lap to make sure. Prost came home second with Luda third, Piquet fourth and Patrese fifth. The final point went to Elio de Angelis (Lotus).

It was Rosberg's first World Championship race victory and suddenly he was leading the World Championship as well.