Arjen Robben donated a hat trick as Bayern continues their relentless run while Dortmund take over the second place by courtesy of Leverkusen's 1-0 loss to Mainz at the 23rd round of the German Bundesliga on Saturday.

Bayern Munich march on as they humiliated Schalke 5-1 to inflict the "Royal Blues" the sixth loss of the season. The Bavarians staged a faultless performance during the first half, as Schalke had absolutely no chance to threat Bayern defence. The hosts ensured a bright start as David Alaba opened the scoring with a deflected free kick goal at the third minute.

The "Royal Blues" were shocked when Bayern doubled their lead at the 15th minute through Robben, who made use of a through ball by Mario Mandzukic to beat custodian Ralf Faehrmann with a lob.

Schalke porous defence allowed Bayern to score another goal as Mandzukic had all time and space to head home Alaba's cross inside the box at the 24th minute.

Schalke were absolutely hapless against Bayern's dominance as the front runners made it 4-0 thanks to the brace by Robben, who finished his solo run into the far post corner four minutes later.

However, things changed at the second half since Schalke were able to disrupt Bayern's build up play. Although no Schalke player scored a consolation goal, it was Bayern's Rafinha who reduced the arrears for the visitors when he cleared a corner into his own goal at the 64th minute.

Nonetheless, things changed from bad to worse when Kyriakos Papadopoulos was sent off with a straight red card following a professional fould to cause a penalty, which was converted by Robben who wrapped up his hat trick at the 77th minute.

Bayern tighten their top spot with 65 points whereas Schalke stuck on fourth place with 41 points.

Dortmund celebrated their eighth win on home soil as they cruised to a 3-0 victory over Nuremberg. Thus the "BVB" oust Leverkusen from the second place in the table.

Juergen Klopp's men staged a dominant performance as they created 12 attempts during the first half while Nuremberg approached just once BVB's goal. Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski worked out a couple of scoring opportunities but he was unable to overcome custodian Raphael Schaefer.

Nuremberg's Tomas Pekhart nearly punished Dortmund wastefulness but the Czech rattled the post with only goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller to beat at the half hour mark.

The hosts broke the deadlock after the restart as Mats Hummels capitalized on a rebound to poke home from very close range at the 51st minute. Nuremberg tried to respond but the "BVB" doubled the lead at the 64th minute when Lewandowski utilized a through ball to beat Schaefer with a well-placed curl from 16 meters into the bottom right.

Nuremberg were unable to put up some resistance therefore Dortmund rounded off their 3-0 win as Henrikh Mkhitaryan killed the game from seven meters at the 83rd minute.

Mainz jumped into the top six of the Bundesliga standings to occupy a UEFA Europa League position following a 1-0 victory on the road against struggling Leverkusen that lost their second place and their fifth straight match overall.

The "Werkself" staged a powerful performance, willing to stop their negative run of four defeats in. Sami Hyypiae's men frenetically pressed from the kick off but it were the hosts that broke the deadlock through Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting, who scored a back heel goal from close range at the 37th minute.

Leverkusen tried to turn things around but Mainz kept the hosts on distance to steal three points on the road.

Elsewhere, bottom side Braunschweig held Monchengladbach to a 1-1 draw. "Foals" goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen invited Braunschweig to snatch one point owing to a moment of madness. It is the eight winless game in row for Monchengladbach.

Hannover recovered from three losses as they wrap a 1-1 draw at Augsburg meanwhile Bremen defeated Hamburg 1-0 at the 100th Northern derby. It is the first victory for the "Green-Whites" in the second half of the campaign.

The following matches are scheduled for Sunday: Wolfsburg encounter Hoffenheim and Frankfurt host Stuttgart.

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