Audi locked out the top five in qualifying, and the race looked set to be similarly dominated by the same manufacturer.

While pole-sitter Rene Rast led Mattias Ekstrom and Jamie Green in the early stages, Di Resta, as well as BMW drivers Bruno Spengler and Timo Glock, pitted during the first six laps.

Soon after they changed tyres, Maxime Martin stopped on track with damage to the front of his car, thought to be a result of the Belgian sending Tom Blomqvist into a spin at Turn 2 on the opening lap.

With the pitlane closed as the safety car entered the track, the trio that pitted already was allowed to catch up with the rest of the field without losing ground.

And, as the rest of the field made their mandatory stops over the race, di Resta, Glock and Spengler eventually moved up to the top three.

The chasing pack was initially led by Ekstrom, who had taken the lead from Rast on the double file safety car restart, impressively going around the outside of the Audi rookie at Turn 1.

There was chaos at that restart further back in the pack, with a multi-car incident eventually resulting in Audi's Nico Muller tapping Mercedes' championship leader Lucas Auer out of the race.

Ekstrom and Mike Rockenfeller, from fourth, were the first Audis to pit, the latter thus passing Rast and Green, who changed tyres four and five laps later.

Rockenfeller soon also passed Ekstrom and rapidly closed in on Maro Engel, the Mercedes driver leaving his pitstop until the very end of the race.

While he had superior pace compared to the leading trio, once Rockenfeller caught up with Engel, he was unable to make a move.

Only two minutes remained when Engel's pitstop gave Rockenfeller fourth, just 2.6s behind Spengler.

Once in the clear, Rockenfeller was two seconds quicker per lap, and was all over the BMW driver for the final two laps of the race.

The duo went side-by-side on the main straight on the final lap but, with Spengler having the inside line, he held on and eventually crossed the line in third behind di Resta and Glock.

Rockenfeller had to settle for fourth, with Ekstrom finishing fifth a further five seconds behind.

Rast ended up sixth from pole, as Green took seventh.

The Briton had been running only eighth, and had to defend from Edoardo Mortara after his pitstop, the Italian trying to overtake at the Turn 6-7 chicane, forcing Green to cut the corner.

The aggressive move compromised Mortara's momentum, allowing his 2016 title rival Marco Wittmann to pass him.

Green then passed Gary Paffett for seventh, with Wittmann taking the final pointscoring position.

UPDATE: Green was excluded from the result after the race for a technical infringement relating to the front splitter, following a protest from Mercedes. Audi has announced its intention to appeal.

Race 1 results: