Bruno Spengler was able to fend off the pressure from Gary Paffett's Mercedes at Lausitz and come out on top as BMW got its first DTM win after 20 years. Paffett had a quick start from being third on the grid, bringing him to the tail of a polesitter Spengler at the first corner of the race. The two were able to get away from the others early in the race. For most of the race, the gap between the two became steady at just under a second. However, Schnitzer driver Spengler was able to significantly raise his advantage to about 1.5s as both rounds of mandatory pitstops had neared. What it signified is that even when the HWA team twice gave Paffett a quicker pitstop and the British driver delivered better in and out laps than his major competitor, Spengler was just able to keep the lead. In the last 16 laps, championship leader Paffett spent right on his rival's bootlid; however, the gap had never increased by more than 0.6 s.
But then, he wasn’t able to put up a passing move. He gave up the chance of passing Sengler when he slightly braked too late at Turn 1 on the last lap, bumping over the Ludwig kerbs and fallng behind by more than a second. This guaranteed Spengler’s 10th DTM victory and the first for BMW since Roberto Ravaglia's double win at Hockenheim in October 1992, which was also in a Schnitzer-run car.
At the back of these, another battle for superiority came between BMW/Mercedes battle started as Augusto Farfus, who had lost second place to Paffett at the start, didn’t like the similar pressure from Jamie Green's HWA car for the second half of the race. Green started at sixth place. He then began an outstanding move to deprive Edoardo Mortara's Rosberg Audi of fourth place on lap nine. It then ran 10 laps longer than any of the other frontrunners in his first period to follow the tail of Farfus's RBM-run M3.
