Jason Plato

Timothy Jason Plato (born 14 October 1967) is a British racing driver who last competed in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for BTC Racing.

After success in karting including a 1989 British Championship win in the Junior TKM Class, Oxford-born Plato raced in Formula Three and Formula Renault.

In 1996, he entered the Renault Spider championship, taking a dominant title win.

In 1997, he gained the second drive in the Williams-Renault BTCC team, after Frank Williams organised a test between him, Gianni Morbidelli and Jean-Christophe Boullion with the fastest getting the contract offer.

After being overlooked by Williams, Plato travelled to the Williams base and after some convincing, Sir Frank gave Plato the drive.

Plato took pole for his first three races in the Renault Laguna, and ultimately won 2 races as a rookie, taking 3rd in the championship which was won by his team-mate Alain Menu.

He was 5th in the series in each of the next two years.

Plato joined Vauxhall in 2000, again taking 5th place in the championship.

He has twice been BTCC Champion, in 2001 for Vauxhall and 2010 for Silverline Chevrolet.

He has finished in the top 3 in the Championship 12 times and holds the record for the most overall race wins in the BTCC.

For 2001 the series had a new set of reduced-cost rules, fewer big-name drivers as a result, and Vauxhall had by far the best car.

In a contentious and hard-fought season, Plato won the championship after team-mate Yvan Muller's car caught fire at the last round.

With an ambition to get into NASCAR racing, Plato moved to the British ASCAR stock car scene in 2002, finishing third in the championship for XCEL Motorsport Ford Taurus.

In 2003, he was a driver coach for SEAT, returning to the BTCC with the Spanish team in 2004.

He was employed by SEAT to help with their driver development in 2003, and when they entered a BTCC team in 2004, he was the natural choice to lead the team.

However the new SEAT Toledo needed developing if it were to become a race winner.

Despite the development work needed, the car proved to be a winner right from the start, with Plato going on to win more races than any other driver (seven in total), finishing third overall in the championship.

He has also served as a presenter on the motoring television series Fifth Gear since 2004.

The regulations for 2004 meant that the driver who finished 10th in the first of the meeting's 3 races had pole (and a light car) for race 2, and the winner of race 2 had pole for race 3 (although with a now-heavier car).

As a result of this, the championship rules were changed to reversing the top 10 of the race 3 grid, putting an end to this tactic, and the pace of Matt Neal's Team Dynamics Honda and Yvan Muller's Vauxhall left Plato unable to challenge for a second title in 2005.

He finished 4th in the 2005 championship with only three wins to his credit during the season, with the team now run by Northern South.

For 2006, Plato continued in the British Touring Car Championship as lead driver for SEAT and their new León touring car.

He was the only driver in the three-driver team to compete in all 10 meetings – his team-mates, double BTCC champion James Thompson and ex-DTM driver Darren Turner, shared the team's second Leon.

After the first 3 meetings, he was a point behind Thompson and 3rd in the championship, but had two retirements in the races at Thruxton.

After winning race 1 at Croft, race 2 was his 200th start, and he nearly won, but Matt Neal passed him with 2 laps to go.

He won 2 out of the 3 races at Brands Hatch to keep his faint hopes of winning the BTCC in 2006 alive, but a poor qualifying run at Silverstone finally ended his hopes.

He beat Colin Turkington to 2nd in the championship, meaning that he had then finished in each of the top 5 championship positions.

Winning the first two races of 2007 set the tone for a title battle with Fabrizio Giovanardi's Vauxhall.

Giovanardi took the series lead at Knockhill but Plato retook it at Donington Park after fighting from 9th on the grid to come 5th in race 1 and then win race 2.

He started race 3 from 9th (after spinning this position on the grid-reversal wheel) but fought through to take the lead from Mike Jordan, with some uncertainty over whether he had passed under a yellow flag.

To ensure that he was not penalised, he allowed Jordan to repass him, before retaking the lead a lap later.

The battle went to the final round, with Giovanardi winning by 3 points to take the championship, with Plato declaring that "Fabrizio beat us the right way. He is a very worthy champion and there were no shenanigans between me and him."

In 2008, the team switched to a diesel-powered León.

The first win for a diesel car in the BTCC came in round 7 at Donington Park.

Two wins at Snetterton helped him to close the gap on Giovanardi, but a mechanical failure in race 3 was a precursor to a similar problem in race 2 at Oulton Park, after winning race 1.

These issues typified a season in which performance was not matched by reliability, despite the same cars being largely reliable in the World Touring Car Championship.

Plato went into the final rounds at Brands Hatch still mathematically in with a chance of the title, but admitted that the large points difference between his and Giovanardi's made this unrealistic.

Both he and Giovanardi had poor final rounds at Brands, allowing Mat Jackson to leapfrog Plato for 2nd overall in his privateer BMW.

Plato's plans for 2009 had been affected by SEAT's shock announcement to pull their factory team out of the BTCC at the end of the 2008 season.

It was speculated that Plato was planning to take a sabbatical from racing to focus on his TV work.