Rene Rast has won the Saturday race at Hockenheim, winning a duel with BMW's Marco Wittmann to take his first win since he became a double DTM champion.
Rast had started the race in pole position and led for the vast majority of the race until a safety car caused by a broken down Philipp Eng caused a direct duel between Rast and Wittmann. Wittmann passed Rast at the hairpin on lap 25, but Rast returned the favor a lap later by retaking the lead from the BMW driver. Wittmann then kept the pressure on, but Rast was able to create a small gap which was enough to cruise to victory.
Mike Rockenfeller completed the podium ahead of Robin Frijns, Loic Duval and Timo Glock. Glock fought back admirably after he was forced to pit early when his driver side door came loose.
Paul di Resta finished seventh in his Aston Martin Vantage DTM, ahead Bruno Spengler and Jenson Button, who held on to top-ten finish in his Honda NSX-GT despite a slow start and longer pitstop. Joel Eriksson completed the top ten.
Button's SUPER GT colleague Ryo Hirakawa came home in thirteenth place, profiting from a number of issues and penalties for drivers ahead. Pietro Fittipaldi, Sheldon van der Linde were all handed drive through penalties for various infractions.
Fittipaldi, under the watchful eye of grandfather and double F1 world champion Emerson at trackside, broke rule one of racing: never hit your team-mate. Fittipaldi spun Team WRT stablemate Jonathan Aberdein shortly after the restart. Sheldon van der Linde got penalized for repeatedly forcing other drivers off track, and Müller got caught speeding in the pitlane after a late stop.
Both Philipp Eng and Daniel Juncadella retired with mechanical issues, while the Motul Autech Nissan GT-R of Tsugio Matsuda was struck by mechanical gremlins before the race began and didn't emerge until lap 17, at which point the Nissan came back out but finished in last place.
