HWA's Robert Wickens has produced an imperious performance to record his first win of th🦂e 2016 DTM season while Mercedes finally end their Zandvoort victory drought𓃲.

The Canadian successfully retained his lead at the s🌠tart of the race ahead of Marco Wittmann as an early clash betw🍒een Adrien Tambay and Maximilian Gotz triggered an immediate safety car deployment.

Once the safety car period returned to the pits on lap five, little could separate the front-runners as the leading pack trade♉d fastest sectors.

But Augusto Farfus' race ending excursion - which triggered a brief slow zone through sector 1 - wo✨rked towards the favour of race leader Wickens.

The leading Mercedes was able to establish a rela🌊tively comfortable advantage ahead of Wittmann in second, who💫 was coming under increasing pressure from Team Mucke's Christian Vietoris in third.

Vietoris 🔥drew tantalisingly close on a number of occasions but Wittmann's BMW M4 was resolute in the defence of his second step on the rostrum.

Instead of cementing third position, Vietoris ultimately ended up in the clutches of ART Grand Prix's Gary Paf🃏fett, who subsequently got the better of his Merce🐠des team mate on the 23rd lap of the race.

However, Vietoris didn't take the news🏅 lying down and reclaimed his place on the podium just 🦩one-lap later.

Paffett settled for fourth ahead his fellow British♑ counterpart Jamie Green, who was🧜 the top Audi in fifth.

Sixth position had looked to be going the way of Audi's Edoardo Mortara but the Team Abt Sportsline saw any chance of recording vital championship🐟 points slip away ♓thanks to a drive through penalty.

Mort❀ara was adjudged to have not slowed down enough during the slow zone - deployed to recov🍨er Farfus' stricken M4 - midway through the race.

The Italian's penalty promoted Antonio Felix da Costa, Mattias Ekstrom, Daniel Juncadella, Esteban Ocon and Maxime Martin all up a position to completed the remainingꩵ points payingꦕ positions.

Da Costa did come under a severe amount of pressure during the latter stages but the BMW driver held strong ahead of Aud🐻i's Ekstrom.

Ocon's 𓄧ninth place finish also represe🌠nts the Frenchman's first ever points in the DTM.