Mattias Ekstrom has taken his first win of the 2016 DTM season after capitalisin💃g upon the dramatic start-line clash between title contenders Marco Wittmann and Edoardo Mortara at the Hungaroring.

Mortara's title challenge now appears to be on the ropes d♌espite dominating the vast majority of the Budapest weekend. Wittmann now leads the stan𒁏dings by a clear 26 points.

The race fo✅r the title reached boiling point as soon as the fifth red light went out following a disastrously slow get𝓀away for pole man Mortara.

Having suffered from too much wheel spin, Mortara immediately bogged down, giving the im෴petus to Wittmann, who started directly behind the Audi RS 5.

With the top two title contenders now wheel-to-wheel, Mortara hurriedly moved across of Wittmann🍌 in an attempt to keep the championship leader behind him. Contact was inevitable and chaos ensued.

The altercation tipped Wittmann into a spectacular𝕴 half spin, sending his BMW M4 into the side of Jamie Gr🦄een.

M🎃ortara initially recovered to regain the l༺ead but it soon became clear his Audi was wounded and was forced to pit at the end of the lap from the resulting puncture.

Green followed Mortara into pit♏s but quickly retired his Rosberg r🤪un RS 5 from the action.

Wittmann didn✤'t come off scott-free but managed to regain his composu♑re in fourth despite suffering damage to the front right of his splitter.

All the while, Mattias Ekstrom inherited the lead ahead of Adrien Tambay while t🥂he Merceꦜdes of Daniel Junacedella remarkably rose from twelfth to third in the space of a few corners.

An element of calmness was restored following the f﷽ractious opening corner as the leading group settled into formation with the pit window looming.

With the first lap incident crꦅeating sizeable gaps between the top runners, little changed in the order during the pit-stops despite an array of different strategies.

Team Abt's Ekstrom pitted on the 24th la🔯p of the race and held his net lead ahead of Tambay with Timo Scheider yet to make his🌠 stop ahead.

On 🅷his last appearance of the 2016 DTM season, Ekstrom eventually crossed the line over four seconds clear of Frenchman Tambay while Juncedella followed the Audi duo home for his first DTM podium after 53 attempts.

Wittmann retained his all important fourth ahead of his fellow 💛BMW ru👍nners; Antonio Felix da Costa, Tom Blomqvist and Timo Glock.

F🎐ormer double champion S🌌cheider got the better of Maxime Martin late in the game for eighth but the Belgian managed to hang onto ninth ahead of Mike Rockenfeller.

Languishing in 21st for the remainder of the afternoon𒉰, Mortara eventually pulled into the pits before taking the flag.