At 4pm the race was started under dark clouds by Prince Bernhard, consort of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, and an avid motor-racing fan. It came as no surprise when the mighty 375's of González, Marzotto and Manzon stormed away in 1-2-3 formation at the start, with Moss, Rolt and Wharton (who had a startline collision) in close pursuit. After only five laps the first heavy downpour arrived, negating the Ferrari power advantage. By the end of the first hour, González and Marzotto and Moss had a gap over Rolt, and Manzon. The rest of the field was already a lap down. Forty minutes later on lap 22, still in heavy rain, Moss managed to take the lead, starting the to-and–fro battle between the two marques. Wharton had been held up in the first hour with a blocked fuel filter and over the next couple of hours, the other two Jaguars suffered engine misfires giving the Ferraris a lap's lead over the field. Walker stopped out on the track for 50 minutes, but the Moss/Walker car would not be staging an epic comeback this year. Meanwhile, Behra's Gordini and Fitch's Cunningham were regularly trading places in the top-10, mimicking the disc-brakes versus power battle at the front. However soon after 7pm, Behra pitted with ignition problems and then stopped out on the track beyond Mason Blanche. He pushed the car all the way back to the pits to get going again, but it eventually retired in the middle of the night.