WTCC
2005 - 2007 – Three consecutive World Touring Car Championship titles
The following year in the WTCC inaugural season, Priaulx arrived at the Macau finale one point behind Dirk Müller, but overturned the defecit and clinched the title by 15 points. The deciding race was won by Priaulx’ team-mate: in only his second WTCC race ‘Flying Dutchman’ Duncan Huisman took his RBM BMW to the top step.
The end of the 2006 WTCC, in Macau again, provided even more drama with nine drivers still in contention. Before the event, Priaulx was second in the standings, one point behind Alfa Romeo’s Augusto Farfus and on equal points with BMW’s Jörg Müller. A victory in Race 1 and a fifth place in Race 2 meant that Priaulx retained his title by a single point. Just like in 2005 Priaulx had a strong team-mate for the occasion; this time it was former F1-driver Jan Magnussen having Priaulx’ back.
Priaulx completed a stunning hat trick of WTCC titles in 2007. This time Lady Luck gave him a helping hand, as Yvan Muller’s SEAT retired from the lead at the end of Macau’s race 1, and yet, Priaulx needed to win the second race to secure the title, which he did in style. Fredrik Ekblom made his return within the RBM ranks, helping Priaulx at Anderstorp, Monza and Macau.
2008 to 2010 – Goodbye to WTCC in style
With the arrival of the SEAT turbodiesel cars and the resources invested by Chevrolet in the WTCC programme, the rear-wheel-driven BMW cars had less opportunity to shine. Despite that, RBM and Andy Priaulx remained strong contenders and finished the 2008 WTCC in a respectable fourth position, the best achieved by a BMW team.
The partnership repeated the same result in 2009, when Priaulx was able to claim a couple of crucial victories in the German and Japanese rounds.
At the end of 2010 BMW Motorsport stopped its WTCC commitment and appointed RBM as development team of the new 1.6L turbocharged car for customer teams. RBM took part in its last WTCC season with two cars. Joined by Augusto Farfus, Priaulx scored an impressive six victories and was again classified fourth in the final standings.