Forty-one cars were originally entered, though only 34 arrived for practice and qualifying. Thierry Boutsen took pole position for Brun Motorsport, driving the Porsche 956 he shared with team owner Walter Brun, with a qualifying average speed of 117.102 mph.
Heavy rain and low cloud descended on the Nürburgring from the race's outset, creating treacherous conditions that upended the expected competitive order. Although the Sauber C8 generally lacked effective ground effect aerodynamics and was considered off the pace of the leading Porsches and Jaguars in normal conditions, its driver Mike Thackwell exploited the wet track brilliantly on Goodyear rain tyres. Thackwell overtook Hans-Joachim Stuck's works Porsche 962C to lead on merit, with his Sauber teammate Henri Pescarolo also in the car.
On lap 22, a collision between the Argo-Zakspeed of Martin Schanche and the Tiga-Ford of Roy Baker necessitated a safety car deployment. In the confusion and poor visibility that followed, the two works Rothmans Porsches of Stuck and Jochen Mass collided on the front straight, heavily damaging both cars. The extent of the debris forced race officials to red-flag the event and suspend it for two hours.
When the race was restarted behind the pace car, three Porsche teams — Brun, Joest, and Kremer — chose to withdraw, deeming the continuing wet conditions unsafe. Timing reverted to aggregate, counting the pre-stoppage laps alongside the restart.
At the restart Thackwell maintained control. Derek Warwick's Jaguar passed him as the circuit dried, but the Jaguar later retired with a broken oil line. With the main opposition gone, Pescarolo drove the Sauber home to complete the shortened race distance.
The race was declared after 121 laps covering 598.6 km, rather than the full distance. The Sauber C8 — chassis powered by a Mercedes-Benz engine — won in 3 hours, 42 minutes, and 30.020 seconds, averaging 92.626 mph. Second place went to Klaus Niedzwiedz and Mauro Baldi in the Liqui Moly Equipe Porsche 956 GTi, two laps behind. The podium was completed by Emilio de Villota and Fermín Vélez in the John Fitzpatrick Racing Porsche 956. Klaus Niedzwiedz also set the fastest lap at 1:34.820 seconds (107.778 mph).
The Sauber victory was historically significant on two levels. It was Sauber's first-ever World Championship win and simultaneously the first victory for a Mercedes-Benz-powered car in world-level endurance racing since the legendary 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans — a 31-year gap. The result heralded Mercedes-Benz's return as a serious force in sports-prototype racing, a trajectory that would culminate in the full factory Sauber-Mercedes programme of the late 1980s and early 1990s.