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

Mortara'▨s title challenge now appears to be on the ropes despite dominating𓄧 the vast majority of the Budapest weekend. Wittmann now leads the standings by a clear 26 points.

The race for th🃏e title reached boiling point as soon as the fifth red light went out following a disastrously slow getawaꦐy for pole man Mortara.

Having suffered from too much wheel spinও, Mortara 🎉immediately bogged down, giving the impetus to Wittmann, who started directly behind the Audi RS 5.

With the top two title contenders now wheel-to-wheel, Mortara hurriedly move⛦d across of Wittmann in an attempt to keep the championship l🐼eader behind him. Contact was inevitable and chaos ensued.

The altercation t♛ipped Wittmann into a spectacular half spin, sending his BMW M4 into the side of Jamie෴ Green.

Mortara initially recovered to regain the lead 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 pits𝔍 but quickly retired his Rosberg run RS 5 fr𒅌om the action.

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

All the whi😼le, Mattias 🌜Ekstrom inherited the lead ahead of Adrien Tambay while the Mercedes of Daniel Junacedella remarkably rose from twelfth to third in the space of a few corners.

An element of calmness was restored following the fractious openi꧂ng corner as the leading group settled ♏into formation with the pit window looming.

With the first lap incident creati✤ng 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 lap 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 foജur seconds clear of Frenchman Tambay while Juncedella followed the Audi duo ho꧃me for his first DTM podium after 53 attempts.

Wittmann retained his all im𝄹po😼rtant fourth ahead of his fellow BMW runners; Antonio Felix da Costa, Tom Blomqvist and Timo Glock.

Former double champion Scheider got t🥃he 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 afternoon, Mortara eventually pulled into the pits before takiꦑng the flag.