Preening won the thriller, van der Linde struggled.

Preining took first in the seventh but was able to gradually carve a way through the field on a wet track, lap polesitter Maro Engel for the front 16 of 35. A slow 11.2s pitstop left the Mercedes vulnerable to Luca Stolz. But he was able to join the track in the lead and then cruise to a comfortable 4.6s victory.

At the start of the race, Group M Mercedes driver Engel faced pressure from Saturday’s winner Nick Cassidy, while Philipp Engel overtook the other Red Bull Ferrari of Felipe Fraga to move up to third.

After Cassidy’s initial threat dissipated, Engel managed to pull away from the chasing pack as the race reached one-third of the way.

However, the HRT Mercedes of Arjun Maini and the Winward AMG GT3 of Maximilian Götz are one driver ahead of the other, before Prening falls to Schubert’s BMW engineer.

After Cassidy went into the pits on lap 10, Prining quickly closed the gap of 5 to Engel to end the race, eventually sending the Porsche to the inside of the GruppeM Mercedes. Winning move.

He had a lead of nearly six seconds going into the pits on lap 23. Although his pitstop was 11.2s.

As the track began to dry, Prining had no trouble keeping his wet tires in good shape, taking the checkered flag by 4.6s on Stolz at the end of lap 35.

Angell was one of a number of drivers to gamble on slick tires and although his pace seemed to back off at the start, he managed to make quick gains towards the end of the race to take the final spot on the podium.

However, the German driver is under scrutiny after pitting the SSR Porsche of Laurens Vanthorne at Turn 3 late in the season for third place.

Maini was one of the drivers to switch to slick tires late in the race and recovered to fourth after dropping as low as 12th – his best result of the year.

On wet tyres, the engineer dropped to fifth, while championship contender Lucas Auer finished 6th after a good gamble on slicks.

Götz made it five Mercedes cars in the top 10 for seventh, beating the top Audi of the team’s Robersburg driver, Nico Müller.

Grazer Lamborghini’s Mirco Bortolotti looked set for another non-points finish, but an inspired decision to go for slick tires saw Dennis Olsen’s SSR Porsche move up to ninth early in the final.

Three-time DTM champion René Rast looked set for a strong top-five race but could do little to hang on to the drying track on wet tyres, slipping out of the points in 11th.

Sheldon van der Linde’s tough weekend in Austria resulted in no points as he finished 12th, not helped by a nine-place grid drop after repeatedly passing track restrictions in Saturday’s opening race.

The Schubert BMW driver heads into the Hockenheim final 130 points clear of Auer’s Mercedes 11, with Rast, Prening and Bortolotti all chasing the crown.

DTM Red Bull Ring – Race Results: