Engstler ends Chevrolet's win by taking first WTCC victory at Oschersleben

Starting from pole under WTCC's reverse-grid rules, Engstler was initially demoted to second behind the fast-starting Zengo BMW of Norbert Michelisz, but retook the lead when Michelisz spun exiting the penultimate corner on lap eight.

From there he never looked under serious pressure even as Chevrolet's Alain Menu closed in the final laps, holding the Swiss driver at bay to take his first win by just under one second.

Engslter, who celebrated his 50th birthday six days ago, said: "What a fantastic day! Beautiful! Thank you so much to my team and BMW, they did a great job after my accident in the first race, and I was able to repay them with this."

Menu was followed home by SUNRED SEAT's Gabriele Tarquini, who held off a charging Tom Coronel in a photo finish - just 0.031s separating the pair at the flag.

Behind them, the battle between Chevrolet team-mates and championship leaders Rob Huff and Yvan Muller provided plenty of entertainment.

Huff led Muller away from the start, but on lap six the Briton was held up trying to pass SUNRED SEAT's Tiago Monteiro on the outside of Turn 1 - Muller slipping down the inside of both to jump from eighth to sixth.

The Frenchman repeated the trick several laps later as he picked off Coronel while the ROAL BMW man fought with Michelisz, but Coronel was able to repass Muller in the final laps to leave him directly ahead of Huff on the road.

Huff however was not able to mount a serious challenge and eventually had to settle for sixth, with Muller reducing his championship deficit to just six points at the head of the standings.

Robert Dahlgren shadowed Huff for almost the duration of the race but could never mount a serious challenge and came home seventh in the Volvo, ahead of Monteiro, Wiechers BMW's Stefano D'Aste and Proteam BMW's Javier Villa.

Results - 15 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car             Time/Gap
 1.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW       25m05.708s
 2.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet            + 0.750s
 3.  Gabriele Tarquini   SUNRED SEAT          + 2.361s
 4.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW             + 2.392s
 5.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet            + 3.117s
 6.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet            + 3.816s
 7.  Robert Dahlgren     Polestar Volvo       + 4.310s
 8.  Tiago Monteiro      SUNRED SEAT          + 8.762s
 9.  Stefano D'Aste      Wiechers BMW         + 9.286s
10.  Javier Villa        Proteam BMW         + 12.352s
11.  Darryl O'Young      Bamboo Chevrolet    + 15.585s
12.  Pepe Oriola         SUNRED SEAT         + 17.167s
13.  Ibrahim Okyay       Borusan BMW         + 44.757s
14.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Bamboo Chevrolet    + 47.098s
15.  Aleksei Dudukalo    SUNRED SEAT       + 1m04.582s
16.  Fabio Fabiani       Proteam BMW       + 1m30.934s
17.  Michel Nykjaer      SUNRED SEAT          + 4 laps

Retirements:

     Norbert Michelisz   Zengo BMW             10 laps
     Fredy Barth         SUNRED SEAT            7 laps
     Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW            0 laps
     Kristian Poulsen    Engstler BMW           0 laps