The team missed the Monaco Grand Prix a fortnight later, but returned in France for the race at Dijon-Prenois. Giacomelli's qualifying pace was not so strong, and he started the race in 17th place, nearly 3.5 seconds behind Jean-Pierre Jabouille's pole time in the Renault. Another poor start put him 20th at the end of lap 1, although he quickly passed Jan Lammers's struggling Shadow. He once again slowly picked up places as others fell by the wayside, and by lap 20 he had regained 17th. However the car seemed to suffer from a lack of pace in the next phase of the race, and Giacomelli was passed by Riccardo Patrese and Jochen Mass of Arrows, Héctor Rebaque in the Lotus and his old foe de Angelis in quick succession, dropping to 20th by lap 26. He slowly started to pick up the pace again, and was able to finally re-pass de Angelis on lap 51, and the pair moved up the order as other cars fell out, eventually lying 16th and 17th. The two Italians continued to fight for the remainder of the race, being lapped five times by leader Jabouille in the process. With Jabouille already having crossed the finish line, lap 75 would be their last lap, and de Angelis passed Giacomelli with mere yards of the race remaining to take 16th place from him at the death.