The IMSA Battle on the Bricks served up a lot of challenges for Ford Multimatic Motorsports but the team pushed through and it was the car of Mike Rockenfeller and Priaulx that took the GTD Pro win at the iconic circuit.
The No 64 had endured a disappointing qualifying session as they lined up for the race in seventh whereas the No 65 Mustang of Christopher Mies and Frederic Vervisch was on the front row.
At the halfway mark of the six-hour race, Mies had completed a strong run and Vervisch was running well in the No 65, battling with the No 1 BMW for the lead when he had contact with a GTP car. He made it back to the pits for repairs but was out of contention for points once he rejoined.
The No 64 Mustang had done a brilliant job of moving up to second place during the two opening hours but then a drive-through penalty sent it barrelling to the back of the pack.
Priaulx recovered to eighth position before handing over to Rockenfeller who continued the good work, climbing up the order.
With an hour left on the clock, Rockenfeller had made it all the way up to second before pitting to hand over to Priaulx for the run to the flag.
With 40 minutes to go, the Porsche and the Ford were past the BMW, now all the Guernsey driver had to do was pass his former teammate Laurin Heinrich in Rexy, which he did with a lovely move and sailed off in the lead, all the way to the chequered flag.
It is Priaulx’s fourth IMSA win and first in a Michelin Endurance Cup event.
‘I just want to say thanks to IMSA for making it more cleaner racing,’ he told imsa.com.
‘That’s made a lot of help for us to actually race cleanly and actually it’s more fun I would say.
‘Yeah, it was a nice pass. I felt like I executed a perfect move there, and he went wide, and that was it really. It was the move for the win, I think, really. Easy to get stuck behind there. You need to be assertive, and I was, and just had to get it done. So yeah, happy with that.’
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