After Bayern had lost 2-0 at Bayer Leverkusen, goals from Jakub Blaszczykowski and Shinji Kagawa gave Dortmund a club record eighth successive win, after former striker Mohamed Zidan levelled for Mainz with 15 minutes remaining.

Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp joked before the game that his side had "cracked open the champagne" on the bus to the stadium - but the defending champions have strengthened their position.

Bayern's title challenge suffered a setback today as goals inside the last 11 minutes from Stefan Kiessling and Karim Bellarabi won it for Leverkusen.

Elsewhere, Freiburg moved off the bottom with a surprise win over Champions League-chasing Schalke.

Sebastian Freis and Daniel Caligiuri were on target for the home side, with Teemu Pukki replying for the Royal Blues - whose hopes of winning the Bundesliga this season now appear to have vanished.

Bruno Labbadia celebrated a winning return to Hamburg as his Stuttgart side won 4-0.

Labbadia was sacked as coach of Hamburg less than two years ago and this was his first time back at the HSV-Arena.

Vedad Ibisevic gave them the lead and two penalties from Zdravko Kuzmanovic ended the game as a contest. Paolo Guerrero's red card added to the home side's misery before Martin Harnik completed the scoring with his eighth goal of 2012.

Hertha Berlin finally picked up their first victory of 2012 as Otto Rehhagel's team beat his former club Werder Bremen to snap a 12-game winless streak. Australia international Nikita Rukavytsya scored the only goal in the 62nd minute.

Kaiserslautern and Wolfsburg shared the spoils in a goalless draw which did neither struggling team many favours.