Grasser Racing team-mates Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli and Christian Engelhart won the opening round of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup following an action-packed contest at Monza.
The race was marred early on by a multi-car pile up at the first corner that eliminated 11 of the 50 starters immediately.
Guy Smith's Bentley Continental GT3, which started on the second row, tapped Ezekiel Perez Companc's Lamborghini into a spin on the run into the tight right-hand chicane. Companc's car then acted as a roadblock for those in the midfield, causing a chain reaction of crashes.
All drivers were able to walk away from the incident, but over a fifth of the field had been taken out including cars from seven different manufacturers.
Red flags were immediately waved and the race put on hold for around 20 minutes before a single-file restart was held with Miguel Molina's SMP Racing Ferrari leading.
Molina led the opening stanza, with Smith close behind having escaped the incident.
Repeated calls by race control for Smith to come in to serve a penalty went without action from the M-Sport crew, and after five attempts Smith was shown a black flag and ordered to withdraw from the race.
Bentley protested that Smith had received a tap from behind which forced him into Companc, but the race officials deemed his actions worthy of penalisation.
With Smith out of the picture, that left Molina and Bortolotti in the Grasser Lamborghini to scrap for the lead.
The positions switched at the first round of pit stops, with the Grasser crew putting Caldarelli out ahead of Victor Shaytar.
Caldarelli, who also races for Lexus in Japanese Super GT, then pulled out a 20 second gap as Shaytar came under pressure from the ISR Racing Audi R8 of Filip Salaquarda.
The Audi eventually made its way into second, but a tyre issue during the final stint with Clemens Schmid behind the wheel relegated it to 29th.
The SMP Ferrari also encountered a setback, when Davide Rigon incurred a drive-through violation for overtaking under yellow flags.
That not only preserved the Grasser Lamborghini's lead in the final stint, but also promoted the pole-sitting AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Pasin Lathouras and Michele Rugolo into second position.
With Engelhart 29.360 seconds up the road and the third-placed Jimmy Eriksson/Maximilian Buhk/Franck Perrera HTP Mercedes around 10 seconds behind, Pier Guidi cruised home to take second as Lamborghini celebrated its third outright victory in Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup history.
In fourth was the Giancarlo Fisichella/Marco Cioci/James Calado Ferrari, followed by the SMP Racing Ferrari which recovered from its penalty.
Sixth went to the sole surviving Bentley Continental GT3, ahead of the Black Falcon Mercedes AMG GT3.
Pro/Am honours were scooped by Oman Racing, run by British outfit TF Sport, as Jonny Adam and Ahmad Al-Harthy produced a near-perfect run to claim victory.
Adam stayed out of trouble at the start, before Am driver Al-Harthy completed a clean middle stint before handing back to Adam, who set the fastest lap overall on a fresh set of tyres towards the end.
The Aston Martin factory driver sealed the win – and eighth place in total – with an overtake on the Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 in the final five minutes.
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