Robin Frijns has taken the second win of his DTM career at the Nürburgring after championship leader Nico Müller fell away in the second half of the race.
Müller started the race from pole position and led the first half of the race convincingly ahead of Frijns and Rene Rast and maintained the lead throughout the pitstop cycle.
After the pitstops, however, the championship lead began to drop off the pace and was passed for the lead by Frijns on lap 17. As Frijns built up his lead, Müller was caught by Rast on lap 26 and passed for second place.
The reigning champion appeared to briefly lose the place back to his rival as he ran through the gravel at the Michael Schumacher-S, but Rast was able to hold onto second.
It did however, prevent him from closing the gap to Frijns, who took his second win in eight days by a margin of just over four seconds.
While Frijns and Rast held onto their podium finishes, Müller dropped off the pace further, losing third place to Mike Rockenfeller before also dropping to fifth on the same lap when Loic Duval made his way past.
Müller finished fifth, equaling his worst finish of the season, ahead of Sheldon van der Linde. Jamie Green came home in seventh following contact with BMW’s Jonathan Aberdein, after which the stewards ordered the pair to switch places, dropping Aberdein to eight.
Marco Wittmann was ninth ahead of Lucas Auer, completing the top ten. Robert Kubica was the only rookie to stay out of trouble and finished twelfth, ahead of Harrison Newey, who started from the pitlane and later also served a five second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
Timo Glock was fourteenth ahead of Ferdinand Habsburg, while Fabio Scherer finished five laps down due to technical issues.
