Niki Lauda dominated practice, with teammate
Clay Regazzoni joining him on the front row.
Jean-Pierre Jarier had a crash and the
Maki team's weekend ended abruptly in a cloud of smoke from engine problems.
James Hunt had a storming practice to take third place on the grid. On Saturday afternoon, weather conditions meant practice times would not improve, so Hunt was sent out to get some extra testing – during which something in the metering unit broke. This was fortunate as the Dutch Grand Prix did not have Sunday morning practice, so had it not been for those extra laps, the mechanical problems would have occurred during the race itself. The race was delayed by rainstorms as the teams persuaded the organizers to let them run on wet tyres. Lauda led from
Jody Scheckter whilst
Vittorio Brambilla and
Patrick Depailler collided.
Jochen Mass was having metering unit troubles and
Jacky Ickx exploded his engine. Meanwhile, Hunt had changed onto dry tyres and was gaining time rapidly on the drying surface to take the lead from Jarier and Lauda by lap 15. The Austrian championship leader was finding overtaking a very difficult prospect indeed.
Emerson Fittipaldi dropped out with engine problems whilst
John Watson broke a wing support and
Carlos Reutemann got past
Tom Pryce who was suffering from brake problems. On lap 43, Jarier spun when a tyre burst. Lauda now pursued Hunt desperately for over 20 laps, putting him under immense pressure. Hunt had cracked under similar pressure in Buenos Aires, but this time he resisted. The
Ferrari managed to gain on the slow corners, but Hunt pulled ahead on the fast corners and down the straight. The TV directors were so confused that the captions showed three laps left to go when a massive roar from the grandstands signalled it was all over. Hunt became the first Englishman to win a Grand Prix since
Peter Gethin four years earlier. Lauda's second place reinforced his championship lead, which expanded to 13 points over Brabham driver
Carlos Reutemann. == Classification ==