Born in Guernsey, Priaulx has competed in many types of motorsport, beginning in karting at the minimum age of eight. After a brief flirtation with powerboat racing, he started hillclimbing while still a teenager, sharing a car with his father Graham. It was quickly apparent that he had great natural ability, and few people were surprised when he took the British Hillclimb Championship title in 1995.
After this, he made the switch to circuit racing, where after a relatively low-key couple of years in Formula Renault UK Championship and British Formula 3 he eventually demonstrated his skills were transferable by switching to the Renault Spider championship in 1998, completely dominating it in 1999. His career stalled somewhat when he returned to British Formula 3 in 2000–01. He had some success at this level, but despite finishing sixth in the championship in 2001 was unable to progress further up the single-seater ladder.
Touring cars
In 2001 Priaulx had a pair of British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) guest drives for the Egg Vauxhall team, standing in for the suspended Phil Bennett. He stunned the regulars by taking pole position on his debut at Oulton Park, demonstrating that his future appeared to lie in that direction.
The following year he was signed by the works Honda BTCC team for their 2002 campaign. He won one race and finished on the podium in two others, and the following season was signed by Bart Mampaey's BMW UK team for their European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) effort. He was in contention for the title until late in the year, eventually finishing third. Priaulx also occasionally guested in Australian V8 Supercar racing, competing at the Bathurst 1000km in 2002 with Yvan Muller in a Kmart Racing Commodore and 2003 with Cameron McLean again in a Kmart Commodore, and also the Sandown 500 km in 2003.
2004 saw Priaulx win a major circuit racing championship, as he became ETCC champion after a season-long battle with Dirk Müller. Both men obtained the same number of points, but Priaulx had won five races as against Müller's three, and this was sufficient to hand the Priaulx the title.
Priaulx repeated his 2004 success in 2005, 2006 and 2007, clinching the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC, essentially the same series, with two races outside Europe in 2005 and three in 2006) at the final round in Macau. In 2005, he won the crown with two second-place finishes in the final round when his nearest rivals, Dirk Müller and Fabrizio Giovanardi both failed to score. The following year, a win in the opening race of the final meeting left him needing to finish fifth in the final event to beat Jörg Müller by a single point, which he achieved.
Heading into the final meeting of the 2007 WTCC season at Macau, Priaulx was joint leader of the championship alongside former BTCC champion Yvan Muller. He came eighth in the first race and won from pole position in the second race to claim his and BMW's third WTCC championship in a row.[5]
On 5 December 2010, BMW announced that it would not be continuing its factory effort in the World Touring Car Championship from 2011 onwards.[7] It was announced on 25 January 2011, that Priaulx contest the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup for BMW, as well as undertaking testing duties for BMW with cars from other racing categories.[8]
On 10 December 2018, it was announced that Priaulx will join Lynk & Co Cyan Racing for the 2019 World Touring Car Cup season, partnering former WTCC champions Yvan Muller, Thed Björk and Yvan's nephew Yann Ehrlacher.[12] On 17 November 2019, Priaulx secured his maiden win in the FIA World Touring Car Cup in Macau.[13]
Priaulx's son Sebastian Priaulx is also a racing driver.[16] He competed in the 2019 British GT Championship and was in contention for the GT4 title, driving with Scott Maxwell, but lost out on the title to Tom Canning and Ash Hand by 8.5 points.[17]
Nationality
Priaulx is from Guernsey, a crown dependency of the United Kingdom. As a proud Guernseyman, Priaulx has always incorporated the Guernsey flag prominently in his helmet designs. He has occasionally been mistakenly identified as French due to his surname, which is common in Francophone countries; a French national flag was displayed above the podium at the first race in Curitiba in the 2007 WTCC season.
† As Priaulx was a guest driver, he was ineligible to score points.
Complete British Touring Car Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1 point awarded all races) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap – 1 point awarded all races) (* signifies that driver lead feature race for at least one lap – 1 point awarded)