Robert Wickens won the second DTM Series race at the Nurburgring ahead of team-mate Paul di Resta and pole sitter Marco Wittmann.
Di Resta jumped into the lead of the race on the run down to Turn 1, quickly opening up a gap to Wittmann behind. Lucas Auer was in third place behind the duo but ran wide over the kerbs which forced him into a spin and subsequently drop down the order.
Outfront, di Resta had built an advantage over Wittmann but the German was rapidly cutting that down and made a move into Turn 1 on lap 15 which put the BMW driver into the lead.
The pair pitted two laps later, with di Resta having lost ground over the two laps before a slow pitstop put him even further back.
Wickens, having come into the pits three laps before Wittmann easily found his way by as the BMW driver was powerless to defend on his cold tyres.
Once he had temperature in his tyres Wittmann managed to come back at Wickens, and attempted a late dive down the inside of the Canadian into Turn 1.
The pair made contact mid corner, with the Mercedes driver claiming the inside line for Turn 2 to stay ahead and pull away from the chasing BMW.
Wittmann seemed to lack pace as his stint wore on, with di Resta easily getting a move done with six laps remaining.
In the closing stages di Resta caught his team-mate but Wickens managed to hold on to the flag.
Late-stopping Bruno Spengler caught Wittmann as well but with no threat from behind the Canadian played the role of supporting team-mate, due to championship positions, and held station behind him allowing Wittmann the final podium paying position.
Maro Engel had a fairly quiet race which rewarded him with fifth place. Unexpectedly Mattias Ekström found himself extending his championship lead by finishing sixth after starting from 13th place.
By making a long first stint work Jamie Green got himself up to seventh place.
Green had gotten ahead of Ekström when the Swede made contact with Augusto Farfus with six laps to go, but Ekström found his way back past on the penultimate lap.
Timo Glock, Farfus and Tom Blomqvist completed the points scorers.
Glock was involved in an incident with Nico Muller, who he hit under braking at the chicane. Muller’s Audi sustained a lot of damage and was unable to carry on. Pieces of bodywork flew off Glock’s BMW but the former Formula One driver was able to carry on.
Muller was the only retirement from the race.
Gary Paffett had been involved in the BMW battle but came together with Maxime Martin at the chicane on the final lap. The Belgian continued on to claim 11th place, with the Briton dropping to 14th behind Rene Rast and Auer.
Loic Duval, Edoardo Mortara and Mike Rockenfeller completed the finishers.
The DTM now heads to Austria for the penultimate round of the 2017 season on the 22-24 September.
