Luca Stolz converted pole position into victory to take his first DTM win of the season in Race 1 at Sachsenring behind the wheel of the #4 Mercedes-AMG Team HRT machine.
Thomas Preining came home second in the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R and Ayhancan Güven rounded out the top three in the #24 Team75 Motorsport Porsche.
Mirko Bortolotti endured a difficult Saturday afternoon and the #92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Hurucan GT3 EVO2 driver surrendered the championship lead.
At lights out Stolz held the holeshot going into the first corner as the pack wound around the tight opening sequence of turns.
Güven held onto second at the start in the #24 Porsche with Preining third and Jack Aitken cycled up to fourth in the #14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.
Bortolotti completed the top five at the end of the first tour of the circuit and both Kelvin (#3 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II) and Sheldon van der Linde (#1 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) passed Thierry Vermeulen in the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari on the opening lap.
With most of the pack fighting for position, Stolz was able to stretch out an advantage early on and already had a 2.6s advantage after a lap and a half.
As Stolz had stretched his margin to three seconds after the first 10 minutes of racing, the Safety Car was called out with debris out on track needing to be cleared as a consequence of the frantic opening exchanges where cars jostled for position including Maro Engel, who’d gone off on the gravel in the opening lap in his #48 Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Engel limped on with damage for 35 minutes, eventually retiring to the pits.
The Safety Car period lasted just a few minutes and Stolz led away comfortably, ahead of Güven, Preining, Aitken, Bortolotti, Kelvin van der Linde and Vermeulen.
Vermeulen was met with a challenge from Sheldon van der Linde, with the pair tussling in the laps after the restart with van der Linde eventually putting a move on the Ferrari that also allowed Ricardo Feller through in the #7 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II.
As one Emil Frey Racing car was sent down two places in the order, another retired to the pits, with Aitken heading back to pit road with an apparent issue with his Ferrari which transpired to be a punctured radiator.
With the pit window open after 20 minutes of action, Stolz had stretched his lead back up to two seconds and he, third-placed Preining, Feller and Vermeulen pitted at the first opportunity.
Güven then pitted a lap later from the lead, as did Sheldon van der Linde.
But both Stolz and Preining passed Güven as he exited pit lane, with Feller staying ahead of Sheldon van der Linde.
This handed Stolz a net lead, with Bortolotti the true leader out in front, who then elected to pit with approximately 5 minutes of the pit window gone.
Stolz, Preining and Güven all cycled around in front of Bortolotti as the SSR Performance driver exited the pits with a dramatic lock-up into turn 1.
Borotlotti was then under investigation for spinning his wheels on the jacks in pit lane and was handed a penalty lap almost immediately.
To make matters worse for the #92 driver, he took to team radio to complain of ABS issues, the cause of his lock up at the end of pit lane which in turn caused a flat spot on one of his tryes.
Whilst simultaneously juggling his issues, Bortolotti took his penalty lap which dropped him to 12th with only three runners ahead of him left to put.
With less than 10 minutes of the pit window remaining Marco Wittman had yet to pit and was stretching his opening stint as long as possible at the front of the field in the #11 Project 1 BMW M4 GT3.
With just over six minutes left of the pit window, Wittman headed into the pits and Stolz regained the lead.
Preining was in second, 2.278s behind Stolz with 24 minutes remaining, with Güven in third, Feller fourth, Kelvin van der Linde fifth and his brother Sheldon in sixth.
As the race clock wound down the drivers settled into a rhythm and with 10 minutes remaining Stolz had stretched his advantage over Preining to 2.7s.
Stolz held onto the lead to take the chequered flag and a comfortable victory, his second in the DTM and first in 2023.
Preining finished 2.688s back in second and is the new series leader, with a six-point advantage over Bortolotti.
Güven completed the podium, ahead of the ABT Sportsline pair, with Feller and Kelvin van der Linde practically finishing nose to tail in fourth and fifth.
Sheldon van der Linde warded off the challenge of Dennis Olsen in the #90 Manthey EMA Porsche to finish sixth, with Rene Rast behind the pair in eighth in the #33 Schubert Motorsport BMW.
Bortolotti’s troubled race saw him come home in ninth and Vermeulen completed the top-10.
DTM action resumes Sunday with Qualifying for Race 2 at 09:05 local time (08:05 BST).
