Rast keeps title hopes alive with 5th win in a row

Reigning champion Rene Rast took a hard fought fifth win in a row to keep his DTM title hopes very much alive after leading an Audi 1-2 result in race one at the Hockenheimring.

Rast was on the brink of falling out of this season's title race after heading into the opening race of the deciding weekend exactly 30-points behind the then championship leader Paul di Resta.

However, a difficult afternoon for Di Resta meant the Mercedes driver lost the championship lead to his team mate Gary Paffett, who finished race one in fourth and now has a six-point lead in the standings as a result, with Rast now just 15-points further back.

Indeed, Paffett led the first third of the race ahead Rast, but the Mercedes driver fell behind the Rosberg-run Audi shortly after the pit-window.

Rast managed to close the gap on Paffett after pitting a lap earlier than his Mercedes rival during the pit-window and subsequently made good use of his warmer tyres to snatch the lead away from the British driver on the 18th lap of the race.

The pair went onto battle to and fro with the lead changing on multiple occasions. But Rast finally stamped his mark on the race after wrong-footing Paffett into the Spitzkehre hairpin with a superb 'dummy manoeuvre' on the 23rd lap of the race.

A late safety car phase dealt a further blow to Paffett's race-winning aspirations, which resulted in the 2005 champion eventually falling down from second to fourth, behind Robin Frijns and Timo Glock.

Di Resta endured a messy race on his way to an eighth place finish behind the Audis of Loic Duval, Mike Rockenfeller and Nico Muller.

The former F1-driver lost touch with his title rivals early in the race after small contact with the BMW of Augusto Farfus dropped Di Resta down to sixth in the early stages.

Bruno Spengler and Edoardo Mortara completed the points paying positions in ninth and tenth.