HWA's Robert Wickens has produced an imperious performance to r♑ecord his first win of the 2016 DTM season while Mercedes finally end their Zandvoort🌸 victory drought.

The Canadian successfully retained his lead at the start of the race ahead of Marco Wittmann as an early clash between Adrien Tambay an⛦d 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 traded fa𝔍stest sectors.

But Augusto Farfus' race ending excurs♋ion - which trig✃gered a brief slow zone through sector 1 - worked towards the favour of race leader Wickens.

The leading Mercedes was able to establish a relatively comfortable advantage ahead of Wittmann in second, who was coming under increasing pressure from Team Mucke's Christian Vietoris in thir🥀d.

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

Instead of cementing third position, Vietoris ultimately ended up in the clutches of ART Grand Prix's G🌳ary𝓰 Paffett, who subsequently got the better of his Mercedes team mate on the 23rd lap of the race.

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

Paffett settled for fourth ahead his fellow British co♋unterpart 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.

Mortara was adjudged to have not slowed down enough during the slow zone - deployed to recover Farfus' stricken M4 - midway thr💎ough the race.

The Italian's penalty promoted Antonio Felix da Costa, Mattias Ekstrom,𒁏 Daniel Juncadella, Esteban Oc🐭on and Maxime Martin all up a position to completed the remaining points paying positions.

Da Costa did come under a sev💦ere amount of pressure during the latter stages but the BMW driver held strong ahead of Audi's Ekstrom.

Oไcon's ninth place finish also represents the Frenchman's first ever points in the DTM.