From Williams-Renault to Vauxhall, SEAT and Chevrolet, a British touring car driver who won two BTCC titles, set the series' race-win record and later launched his own team.
Born in Oxford in 1967, Jason Plato won the BTCC in 2001 and 2010 and holds the series record for race wins. He also co-presents Fifth Gear. In 2026 he ran his own team, Plato Racing, until it entered administration in August.
Jason Plato is a British former racing driver who won the British Touring Car Championship in 2001 and 2010. He holds the series record for race wins and went on to present the motoring show Fifth Gear, and in 2026 he briefly ran his own BTCC team, Plato Racing.
Where did Jason Plato come from?
Born in Oxford on 14 October 1967, Plato attended Chillingham Road Primary School. Karting came first, including a 1989 British title in the Junior TKM class, before he moved into Formula Three and Formula Renault.
In 1996 the Renault Spider series crowned him champion after a dominant campaign. His BTCC career began with Williams-Renault in 1997.
Two BTCC titles, a series record for race wins and a Fifth Gear career that outlasted his years on the grid.
How did Plato's BTCC career begin?
In 1997 Plato won the second drive at the Williams-Renault BTCC team. A test against Gianni Morbidelli and Jean-Christophe Boullion was arranged by Frank Williams, but Plato was first passed over and had to visit the base to press his case.
In the Renault Laguna he started from pole in his first three rounds, and as a rookie he took two wins. He finished third in the championship behind team-mate Alain Menu. Fifth overall followed in each of the two seasons after that.
How did Plato win his first BTCC title in 2001?
Plato joined Vauxhall in 2000 and finished fifth in the championship. The 2001 rules were cut-price, which thinned the big names, and Vauxhall's car was clearly the class of the field.
It was a fierce, disputed year, and the crown came his way when Yvan Muller's car burst into flames at the final round. It was the first of his two titles.
Beyond the BTCC, Plato raced in the Silverstone Rally Sprint in 1998, part of the British Rally Championship, finishing ninth in a works Renault Megane with co-driver Andy Wilman. That year he also ran four WTCC rounds for SEAT Sport, with a race-two runner-up finish at Silverstone. In the European Touring Car Cup he won a race and ended runner-up overall.
Why did Plato step away from the BTCC in 2002 and 2003?
Aiming at NASCAR, he switched to British ASCAR stock cars in 2002 and placed third in the title with XCEL Motorsport's Ford Taurus. SEAT employed him as a driver coach in 2003, and he rejoined the BTCC with them in 2004.
The SEAT years that followed were the longest single spell he has spent with one team.
How strong were Plato's years with SEAT?
In 2004 SEAT entered a BTCC team with the new Toledo, and Plato led it. He led the wins tally that year with seven, and finished third in the standings. Later that year a rule change reversed the top ten of the race three grid, which ended a tactic that had been used under the 2004 regulations.
Fourth came in 2005 with three victories, by which time Northern South ran the squad. In 2006 he drove the SEAT Leon, competing in all ten meetings. He was third in the standings after three meetings and won two out of three races at Brands Hatch, but a poor qualifying run at Silverstone ended his title hopes. He finished second in the championship, which meant he had now finished in each of the top five positions.
At Croft he took race one, and in race two, his 200th start, he was narrowly beaten by Matt Neal with two laps left.
The 2007 season became a title fight with Fabrizio Giovanardi. Plato won the first two races of the season, and Giovanardi took the lead at Knockhill before Plato retook it at Donington Park, where he came from ninth to fifth in race one and then won race two. Giovanardi won the title by three points in the final round.
In 2008 the team switched to a diesel Leon, and its car gave the first diesel win in the series at Donington Park. Snetterton brought him two wins and some ground on the leader, but mechanical failures at Oulton Park cost him points and the title chase.
Plato entered the final Brands Hatch rounds with only a theoretical shot at the title, and he accepted that the points gap made it unlikely. Neither he nor Giovanardi finished strongly at the end, letting Mat Jackson's privateer BMW climb past Plato into second.
How did Plato win the 2010 BTCC title?
When SEAT withdrew its factory squad after 2008, Plato came back in 2009 with a private RML Group Chevrolet Lacetti. The team raced as Silverline after sponsorship arrived after the first meeting. At the final round at Brands Hatch he won all three races, which made him the second driver to do so in the series, and he took a race win by 0.015 seconds, the closest winning margin in BTCC history at the time.
The 2009 standings had him second, five points adrift of Colin Turkington. For 2010 RML became a works Chevrolet operation, with the Cruze and Plato leading the effort. A dominant second half carried him to the title, sealed by the round 29 win at Brands Hatch on 10 October 2010.
The 2009 season was his first with the privately run RML team, which he had joined after SEAT's withdrawal.
That win was his 60th, equalling Andy Rouse's BTCC record at the time. In 2011 he stayed with RML, won the opening round at Brands Hatch to set a new BTCC record of 61 victories, and finished third in the standings.
What were Plato's MG, BMR and Power Maxed years like?
In 2012 and 2013 Plato raced for Triple Eight Race Engineering in the MG6 and finished third in the championship in both years. In 2014 he came second in the standings with a similar car under the same team.
From 2015 to 2018 he drove for Team BMR. He took six wins in 2015 and missed the title by four points. The 2016 squad ran Subaru Levorgs, and he collected nine podiums plus a Knockhill win in his 500th start. A crash at the first round of 2017 damaged his chassis and affected the rest of his season, and he finished 12th in the standings.
In 2018 an engine change caused a sharp drop in performance, and he scored only 26 points, finishing 27th overall. In 2019 he moved to Power Maxed Racing in a factory-backed Vauxhall Astra, finished seventh with 237 points and won the final race of the season. In 2021 the Vauxhall suffered throttle linkage problems, and he finished 14th with 156 points.
No points arrived across the opening four meetings, and his lone podium was second in race one at Croft, part of a Subaru 1-2.
What happened in Plato's final seasons and at Plato Racing?
On 6 April 2022 Plato joined BTC Racing for what he described as his 23rd and last BTCC season. He finished 17th in the standings, with a single podium at Snetterton.
In 2025 he said he would set up his own outfit for 2026, working alongside RML Group. On 8 January 2026 the team, Plato Racing, confirmed the Mercedes-AMG A35 as its car. As owner and principal for the first six 2026 weekends, he saw the team take its first pole and its first win, a 1-2 finish.
On his departure the squad sat third among manufacturers and fourth among teams.
He made that announcement at the 2025 Silverstone round, in an interview with ITV Sport.
On 11 August 2026 Plato Racing entered administration after a notice from its title sponsor, Cataclean Global. The restructuring ended Plato's involvement, and the team, now called CPRL, continues in the BTCC under Dave Kelly as team principal.
How has Plato worked beyond racing?
Plato has presented Fifth Gear on Channel 5 since 2004. He previously co-presented Channel 4's Driven and appeared on Sky One's Mission Implausible, which had him attempt stunts over the course of each episode.
He was injured in October 2007, when a Caparo T1 caught fire during filming for Fifth Gear at Bruntingthorpe. After treatment at several hospitals, including a specialist burns unit, he was back in the car for the final race of the 2007 BTCC calendar the following weekend. His 2019 autobiography, published by Penguin, looks back at his racing life.
He is also a regular at historic racing events, including the Goodwood Revival and the Members meeting. He is a brand ambassador for several companies, runs a marketing agency called Brand Pilot Ltd, and co-hosts the Fuelling Around podcast with Dave Vitty.
Season by season, what did Plato's career look like?
| Season | Team or car | Main result |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Williams-Renault | Two race wins as a rookie; third in the championship |
| 2001 | Vauxhall | Champion |
| 2004 | SEAT Sport | Seven wins; third in the championship |
| 2006 | SEAT Sport | Second in the championship |
| 2007 | SEAT Sport | Title battle with Giovanardi, lost by three points |
| 2009 | RML Chevrolet | Second in the championship |
| 2010 | RML Chevrolet | Champion; 60th win |
| 2011 | RML Chevrolet | Record 61 wins; third in the championship |
| 2015 | Team BMR | Six wins; missed the title by four points |
| 2019 | Power Maxed Racing | Seventh with 237 points |
| 2022 | BTC Racing | 17th; one podium |
What is Plato's legacy?
Plato is remembered as one of the BTCC's most successful drivers, with two championships and a record number of race wins. His 13 top-three championship finishes show how often he was near the front across more than two decades.
His media career and his 2026 team have added a further dimension, although the closing of Plato Racing in administration marked a difficult end to that project.
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