Mercedes outfit HTP Motorsport collected maximum points at the opening round of the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup with victory during the Misano feature race.
Franck Perera and Maximilian Buhk dominated the 60-minute contest on Sunday afternoon, with Buhk crossing the finish line 23.353 seconds ahead of Steven Kane in the second-placed Bentley.
Blancpain GT Sprint Misano result
Perera led from pole position after winning the previous day's qualifying race, and held his advantage through to the pit window.
Buhk emerged from the pits with the #84 Mercedes AMG-GT3's lead intact, and increased the gap during the second half of the race as Kane held off a gaggle of other cars in a tight scrap for second.
The British driver pushed his elbows out and made the #7 Continental-GT3 as wide as possible to keep the hard-charging HTP Mercedes of Dominik Baumann at bay, plus Daniel Juncadella in the AKKA-ASP Mercedes and Christopher Haase driving the Sainteloc Racing Audi.
Kane's team-mate Vincent Abril entered the pit window fourth overall, but a quick service by the M-Sport crew brought the car out in third before a drive-through penalty for Fabian Schiller's Mercedes bumped it up another place.
Baumann, meanwhile, took over the #86 HTP Mercedes after an impressive opening stint by former GP2 driver Jimmy Eriksson who progressed from 20th on the grid to sixth.
Baumann then worked his way up to third and was pushing Kane for the extra podium spot, but ultimately fell 0.390 seconds short.
Juncadella held on to finish fourth for the AKKA squad alongside team-mate Felix Serralles.
Audi factory GT driver Haase completed the top five in the best of the Audis, with the two ROWE Racing BMW M6s a further 12 and 15 seconds back respectively.
It was a nightmare run for the factory-backed WRT Audi squad, which saw its championship-winning machine of Enzo Ide and Christopher Mies finish just outside the top ten following a spin for the former driver.
In addition, Marcel Fässler and Dries Vanthoor retired the sister car early on with mechanical trouble.
Silver category honours went to the HTP Motorsport pair of Schiller and Jules Szymkowiak (with a combined age of just 40) who recovered from Schiller's earlier penalty to finish 12th overall.
Pro-Am honours went to the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 pairing of Daniel Keilwitz and Alexander Mattschull.
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