An Italian job well done by Seb & co

The 21-year-old enjoyed a faultless class victory with Dempsey-Proton Racing at Italy’s Six Hours of Monza, contested in sweltering temperatures exceeding 30C.

The No. 77 Porsche 911 RSR, which the Sarnian shares with Christian Ried and Harry Tincknell, came back from last month’s trials and tribulations of Le Mans to win a close battle with the Iron Dames in the LMGTE AM class.

The Iron Dames – an all-female crew in a No. 85 Ferrari – started in pole position but lost their initial lead to the No. 33 Aston Martin.

However, Aston Martin suffered dearly for an incident of speeding in the pit lane, suffering a 50sec. drive-through penalty early into the third hour.

This meant that the Ferrari was soon leading again, 35sec. clear of a Porsche being driven by Priaulx.

Bad soon became worse for the Aston Martin, which crashed out in an incident that triggered a safety car episode.

That helped Priaulx’s crew close the gap significantly on the Mercedes.

The Porsche did not overtake until the final hour, though, as the Ferrari crew got caught out pitting when the race suddenly turned green at the end of a full-course yellow.

A late refuelling pit stop for Tincknell in the dying minutes did not change that order and the Porsche reached the chequered flag 20sec. clear.

‘What an awesome win there,’ the Guernseyman said in an update to his Instagram followers.

‘Again, the boys did an amazing job. This guy, Harry, awesome – another win.’

Teammate Ried said: ‘Our Porsche drove beautifully and our strategy was spot on.

‘We’re over the moon about this class win. We decided at the end to go for broke – go flat out and make a splash-and-dash pit stop.

‘That worked perfectly because Harry set a blistering pace. It’s a wonderful day for us.’

The WEC returns after a long break with the Six Hours of Fuji on 11 September.

In the meantime, Priaulx is set to make his GT3 debut with Inception Racing at the 24 Hours of Spa, which starts on 30 July.