Robin Frijns and Stuart Leonard clinched the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup title with victory at the Nurburgring, as the main title protagonists fell by the wayside.
The #17 WRT Audi duo entered the 60-minute race as championship outsiders, but problems for the Maximilian Buhk/Franck Perera Mercedes and the Dries Vanthoor/Marcel Fassler Audi created an unlikely result.
Frijns and Leonard overturned a nine-point gap to the favourite Mercedes, which retired after Buhk suffered a left-front puncture whilst in second.
Perera had dominated the opening stint, only to lose the lead to the rival #5 Audi of Vanthoor during the pit stops.
However, Vanthoor was soon called back for a drive-through penalty caused by the WRT crew's air jack tangling with the rear of the car and knocking over a mechanic.
That turned the battle for third – between Markus Winkelhock and Robin Frijns in the two other WRT Audis – into the fight for championship honours.
Winkelhock and team-mate Will Stevens lined up on the grid one point behind Frijns and Leonard, but were also mathemetically capabale of winning the title.
Frijns acted quickly upon Vanthoor's misdemeanour, lunging underneath Winkelhock into the turn one hairpin before the #5 Audi peeled off into the pits.
Frijns, who finished second in the 2015 BGTS Sprint Cup, then held station over the sister Audi to claim victory by four seconds, and the title by eight points.
The Dutch driver's cause had been aided by a reliable first stint from Leonard, who kept the car in the top five until the pit window.
Andrea Caldarelli and Ezekiel Perez Companc picked up the final podium place in their Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3, ahead of BMW's Markus Palttala and Jesse Krohn.
Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart charged up from 19th on the grid to complete the top five in their Lamborghini, which ends the year third in the standings.
Ferrari's Daniel Keilwitz and Alexander Mattschull confirmed themselves as Pro-Am champions with their seventh win of the season, while Fabian Schiller and Jules Szymkowiak (AKKA-ASP Mercedes) sealed the Silver Cup title despite Schiller making contact with another car on the opening lap.
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