The Porsche factory team did not attend, having withdrawn due to a metalworkers' strike in West Germany. Carel Godin de Beaufort was present in his private Porsche 718, but Jo Bonnier remained absent. Dan Gurney practised in a car owned by Wolfgang Seidel but judged it unraceworthy and did not start.
Graham Hill took pole position for BRM with a time of 3:57.0, his first ever Formula One pole, with Bruce McLaren second in the Cooper and Trevor Taylor third in the second works Lotus 25. Jim Clark qualified the lead works Lotus 25 twelfth on the grid after a difficult practice session that included a transmission failure on Friday.
The race began in heavy rain. Hill led from pole with McLaren second and Phil Hill's Ferrari third. Clark, in the monocoque Lotus 25, moved through the field as the rain eased. By lap 8 he was fourth; by lap 10 he was second behind Trevor Taylor in the other Lotus 25; by lap 12 he had taken the lead. From there he controlled the race, winning by 44.1 seconds from Graham Hill's recovering BRM. Phil Hill brought his Ferrari home third.
Clark's fastest lap of 3:55.6, set on lap 15, stood as the race's benchmark. He crossed the line in 2 hours 7 minutes 32.3 seconds.
Ricardo Rodríguez set a record in this race by becoming the youngest driver to score World Championship points, aged 20 years and 123 days, finishing fourth in his Ferrari. The record stood for 38 years before Jenson Button, aged 20 years and 67 days, broke it at the 2000 Brazilian Grand Prix.
On lap 25, Trevor Taylor and Willy Mairesse were disputing second place when their cars made contact. Both crashed into a ditch; Mairesse's car landed upside down and caught fire. Both drivers were thrown clear and survived without serious injury.
The victory was the first of four consecutive wins Clark would achieve at Spa-Francorchamps, all accomplished despite his well-documented dislike of the circuit. His recovery drive from 12th on the grid, on a wet track he found intimidating, announced him as the most naturally gifted driver of his generation. The Lotus 25's monocoque construction had now proven itself at championship level, setting the template for F1 car design for decades to come.
Phil Hill's third place was Ferrari's last podium finish of the troubled 1962 season. Three rounds into the championship, three different drivers from three different teams had won, with the Clark versus Hill title fight that would define the rest of the year now clearly established as the central story.
| Pos | Driver | Constructor | Laps | Time/Gap | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Jim Clark | Lotus-Climax | 32 | 2:07:32.3 | | 2 | Graham Hill | BRM | 32 | +44.1s | | 3 | Phil Hill | Ferrari | 32 | +2:06.5 | | 4 | Ricardo Rodríguez | Ferrari | 32 | +2:06.6 | | 5 | John Surtees | Lola-Climax | 31 | +1 Lap | | 6 | Jack Brabham | Lotus-Climax | 30 | +2 Laps |