BMW Team RMG's Marco Wittmann took a lights to flag victory in Hockenheim, only relinquishing the lead briefly as he chose to stop later than his rivals.
The polesitter got a clean start on a very wet track to retain the lead as those behind battled for grip, with second-placed Mike Rockenfeller and third-placed Paul di Resta losing out to Robin Frijns, who vaulted the duo to take up second place at Turn 1.
Eighth-placed Timo Glock span at the start after brief contact with Rene Rast, which the stewards investigated before settling on taking no action against either driver as Glock was able to continue, losing just a handful of positions.
Meanwhile Rast began to lap quickly, passing Di Resta who dropped down the order before retiring on Lap 18 with a brake issue and then passed Rockenfeller before finding himself on the gearbox of Frijns.
The Audi Team Rosberg driver quickly dispatched the Abt Sportsline driver for second and began to chase down leader Wittmann, only to pull up on the grass with a reliability issue. Race over for the 2018 runner-up.
That put Rockenfeller back in a position to fight Wittmann until he stopped for tyres, dropping him to fourth. However as those ahead him stopped, he moved back into second, but Wittmann was just too far ahead, allowing the BMW driver to pit and re-emerge in the lead.
Rockenfeller settled for second, almost 14 seconds adrift, whilst Frijns was a further 20s off in third.
Glock recovered from that Lap 1 spin to finish fourth ahead of Loic Duval and Sheldon van der Linde, sixth.
Bruno Spengler was seventh ahead of Nico Muller.
The highest-placed Aston Martin was that of Daniel Juncadella in ninth place, narrowly beating Pietro Fittipaldi across the line by just over a second.
Jake Dennis was the last driver to finish on the lead lap, almost a minute behind.
Despite the weather, the race saw just three retirements, with Ferdinand von Habsburg failing to see the third lap after hitting trouble early on.
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