Timo Glock fought his way to DTM Series victory at Hockenheim after a thrilling battle with Gary Paffett.
The Briton ended up third after losing out to Mike Rockenfeller.
Having got a good getaway from pole position Glock easily led from the start and built a gap to those behind.
Lucas Auer, had jumped into second place at the start but was handed a five-second penalty for jumping the start.
Mercedes team-mate Dani Juncadella was also deemed to have jumped the start.
It did not get much better for Mercedes as Edoardo Mortara struggled to get off the grid, and once he got going he had to pull into the pits to retire with an engine issue.
After serving their mandatory pit stops on lap 14 for Glock and 15 for Paffett the pair set about their epic battle.
Paffett benefitted from Auer, who had been running second, having to serve his penalty to come out right on the tail of Glock.
The Briton briefly fell behind team-mate Paul di Resta but made quick work of him to hunt down the race leader.
Having cut the lead to Glock down the pair began their fierce battle, exchanging places frequently into the Turn 6 hairpin, through the high-speed run into Turn 7 and the following quick-fire corners.
Fans sat in the iconic stadium section would have gotten the perfect view of the pair as they rounded corners side-by-side giving each other just enough room.
As a result of the long term lead that he had held, Glock had a lot more DRS usage reserved than the Mercedes behind which came to the German’s advantage.
Glock managed to get a move done into the Sachs Curve but the Mercedes driver ran out of DRS use and was unable to challenge for the lead.
Whilst all this was going on the drivers behind had caught the pair up.
Rookie Joel Eriksson had gotten past di Resta and found himself catching Paffett. He went for a move on the Briton but lost out after slight contact.
This allowed Rockenfeller through who made the move on Paffett on the final lap.
Loïc Duval was lurking in this battle as well, on a weekend where he carried out double duty with DTM and the FIA World Endurance Championship at Spa-Francorchamps. This result also means in the first two races of 2018 Duval has totalled half of his 2017 points tally already.
However, the BMW driver managed to hold on to fourth place.
Pascal Wehrlein‘s return to the DTM has been a strong one thus far by following up is fifth place yesterday with sixth today. Although, it could have been better had Mercedes opted to pit him earlier as he had been ahead of Eriksson in the opening stages.
BMW’s Bruno Spengler was another driver who ran long into the race before stopping to recover from a lowly grid position of fourteenth, finishing ahead of di Resta and team-mate Augusto Farfus.
It was another difficult day for Marco Wittmann who finished just outside the points in eleventh.
The Audi duo Robin Frijns and Nico Müller were twelfth and thirteenth ahead of the final BMW of Philipp Eng.
Auer came home in fifteenth, the penalty for jumping the start ruining his race.
In his last race in the DTM, Audi driver Mattias Ekström finished down in sixteenth. The Swede gave the fans something to cheer about after the race, performing donuts and shredded his tyres in the process.
A lowly weekend for Jamie Green, saw the Brit finish in seventeenth with Dani Juncadella finishing last.
Mortara was the only non-finisher.
DTM heads to the Lausitzring next on the 18-20 May.
2018 DTM Series Results – Hockenheim I Race 2
[table id=2959 /]
