The race distance was shortened from the previous year, from 32 to 28 laps. More than half the field crashed out on the first lap due to a heavy rainstorm, and there were only 7 runners left by the start of the second lap. Jo Bonnier went through an upstairs window of a house on the edge of the track and Jackie Stewart crashed into a telephone pole and then landed in a ditch at Masta Kink, leading to him being stuck upside down in his BRM, halfway up to his waist in fuel, for 25 minutes. Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant, both whom had gone off near Stewart, managed to rescue him with a spectator's toolkit. Denny Hulme crashed at the very fast Burnenville section, Jo Siffert had gone off around Les Combes and Haut de la Cote, and Mike Spence went off near Stavelot, and his car was on the edge of a grassy cliff with half his car hanging off the cliff. He managed to get out before the car plummeted to the bottom of the cliff. Jack Brabham slid his BT19 coming out of the Masta Kink at 135 mph, but regained control of the car and rejoined the race. There was so much water on the track that it got into and flooded Jim Clark's Climax engine and he was out of the race on the first lap too. The entire first lap was run under green flags.