Apart from a brief period shortly after his pitstop, SSR Performance driver Perera was never threatened at the front of the field as he started his first full season in the DTM with a fine four-second victory.
Two-time DTM Trophy champion Tim Heinemann impressed on his step up to the DTM with a charging drive from seventh to second in his Toksport WRT Porsche, while Emil Frey driver Aitken recovered from a poor opening stint to take the final spot on the rostrum in his first race with the new 296 GT3.
As the first DTM race under new owner ADAC got underway, Perera made a clean start from pole position to lead into the opening set of corners, with SSR team-mate Mirko Bortolotti getting the jump on Aitken to establish a Lamborghini 1-2 at the front of the pack.
Abt Audi driver Ricardo Feller also passed Aitken by the end of the opening lap, Heinemann following suit with a physical move on lap two before being asked to hand back the position.
The order at the front remained the same until the pitstop sequence, with Aitken the first among the leading group to complete his mandatory tyre change and Heinemann the next to follow him on lap 24.
Perera waited until lap 27 for his stop, which reduced his advantage to just over a second over Heinemann. He had jumped Aitken, Feller and Bortolotti in the pits to move up to second.
While the threat from Heinemann looked genuine at that point, Perera managed to get his tyres up to temperature and pulled away once again as the Frenchman's stormed to victory on just his second DTM race start.
The win for Perera, who made a one-off appearance at the Norisring last year as a replacement for Rolf Iniechen at Grasser Racing, also marked an ideal start to SSR Performance’s partnership with Lamborghini following its switch from Porsche over the winter and ends Lamborghini’s wait for its first series win.
Aitken rounded off the podium spots in his and Emil Frey's first DTM start, the Briton finishing another four seconds adrift of Heinemann as three different manufacturers finished on the podium.
Source: Autosport