Talking to ‘Mr BTCC’

Jason Plato and the BTCC are inextricably linked. The charismatic self-styled bad boy has done well out of the series, while it also benefits from his combative star-quality

Jason Plato has been one of the tin-top stars for years and has helped make it what it is

Jason Plato has been the most recognisable face in the British Touring Car Championship for two decades, and he has backed up his notoriety with success. He’s won more races than anyone else, and has taken two championships. He admits that if he were a different type of driver, those statistics would be vastly different. “I don’t settle for second place,” he says. “I could’ve had more titles if I’d changed my attitude, I guess, but I would not have had so many race wins. But that’s just the kind of driver I am.”

And it’s that attitude that has kept him at the front for so long. His success, plus his appearances on TV, including the soon-to-be relaunched motoring programme Fifth Gear, have made him the biggest draw.

He has a carefully crafted persona, which has helped him remain at the front and centre of the BTCC, and it’s something that he says he’s done deliberately, right from the start of his career with the Williams Renault team.

“Forging an on-track personality is something I did from a very early stage of my BTCC career,” says Plato. “I realised there was mileage in being a character. I was encouraged to be that – even though it might have caused me some issues.

“Everyone who’s watched me race for a while knows that

I will play the villain – and that’s a role I enjoy, of course, but it does mean that I have to take on the chin some of the downsides of that.

“The villain is the character I’ve played, and it’s served me well. Every driver needs to project something, particularly in the BTCC. When I was looking after up-and-coming drivers in the KX Akademy scheme that I ran, it’s something that I would be saying to all of the candidates. I would ask them to think about what makes them stand out – because just getting the results on the race track does not make you stand out more than anyone else.

“That’s particularly true when you’re in the BTCC where you have weight penalties, you have boost penalties – you’re not allowed to stand out more than anyone else. While you’re not telling drivers not to be true to themselves, they can accentuate things and adopt a role.”

Plato’s role of the baddie has got him noticed, but even he knows it has made him something of a Marmite character – fans either love him or hate him.

But they have had to put up with him since 1997, although there was a sabbatical in 2002 and ’03 when he split from Vauxhall.

There’s a very particular reason why the former single-seater driver has remained loyal to the BTCC, the place that’s given him the baseline for his career success.

“When Andy Priaulx was winning title after title in the

World Touring Car Championship, nobody knew who he was despite the fact that he was a world champion three times over,” says Plato. “That didn’t make sense to me, because I was enjoying – and probably because of the TV work I was doing too – a bigger profile than those guys and arguably a bigger profile than some of the guys who were even in Formula 1 at the time.”

This is one of the reasons why Plato has such an affinity with the BTCC, and the other is finance. Plato is possibly the driver who has generated the most income from the series, but then he is the one who’s come at it from a fresh angle and has arguably put more into it than anyone else.

“For me, motor racing is about a justifiable spend for your sponsors,” he says. “In the WTCC, there only used to be one race a year in the UK, so how could I generate return for my sponsors off the back of that? So the prospect of the World Touring Car Championship simply didn’t work for me. I was having such a good time in the UK and my profile was good. Why would I want to risk that? Also, the prospect of jetting around the world when you are 22 years old sounds exciting. But when you’re in your thirties and forties with a wife and kids, it’s not that appealing.

“I had beaten most of the guys who are racing in the WTCC, so I didn’t have anything to prove on that score either. I didn’t have anything to prove to myself, and if I put the two series on the scales, it would always come down in favour of the BTCC for me.”

Being at the centre of commercial deals is what has kept

Plato racing, and he spotted the changing landscape as the

BTCC altered in the early 2000s. After the cash-rich Super Touring days in the 1990s, the model simply couldn’t last and there had to be a new way of putting together a motor racing programme. That was demanded by the manufacturers as well as the sponsors and it’s a process Plato has been through with four manufacturers: SEAT, Chevrolet, MG and Subaru.

“When I joined, I was with Williams in 1997 and I was there, getting a salary and I was in the car many times a week testing,” says Plato. “It was a proper job, nothing left to chance. When I wasn’t in the car, I was doing PR and things like that:

I was a fully paid-up racing driver. That style of deal went on until the end of the Super Touring era and that period of time was ending when I left Vauxhall at the end of 2001.

“Then came the SEAT days from 2004 – there were still some

‘THE VILLAIN IS THE CHARACTER I’VE PLAYED. THAT’S A ROLE I ENJOY AND IT’S SERVED ME WELL’

JASON PLATO

elements of the old-school deal, but I was much more involved in the epicentre of the marketing of the entire programme.

I had more scope: I was involved with sponsors too, and the whole face of how you did a deal was changing. It then became obvious to me that you had to do a lot more to get these things to work. That was part of the game I was good at and it was something I enjoyed immensely.

“The landscape changed and it was about being there, positioning yourself and trying to get the best deals out there and be in the most competitive place possible. I was right at the heart of all of that with all of my deals, and I still very much am.”

Plato can create that buzz because of the success that he experienced almost from the minute he got into the BTCC. Things could have been very different had Nissan not withdrawn from the tin-top series at the end of 1994.

Plato, who had fallen off the single-seater ladder after the Formula 3 stage, was a regular tester with the Japanese firm’s attack in that season, pounding around Pembrey and refining all elements of the Primera’s handling.

That had come about because Plato was the cousin of

Kieth O’dor, the factory race driver, and he was pushing hard to forge an opening.

“I knew that Eric van der Poele [O’dor’s team-mate] was on the way out,” remembers Plato. “I was trying to talk my way in the door there, but Nissan decided to pull out at the end of the year – that was that. I was getting thoroughly fed up with the whole thing in motor racing. I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. I couldn’t get anywhere.”

After a season in Renault Spiders in 1996 – when Plato dominated – the opening eventually came with the

Williams Renault team. Three poles in his first three races and third place in the standings justified his belief in himself and his persistence in persuading Frank Williams to take a punt on a rookie in the first place.

After the F1 dream was over, Plato had to reset and picking the BTCC was an easy option for him. “Back in those days,

I still had the perception that sportscars was for old blokes,” he admits. “It was something you did when you had already had a career. When I had taken the ‘you’re not going to F1’ pill

I did look around, but there was only one race a year that really counted in endurance racing and that was Le Mans – and it wasn’t properly televised. I guess the BTCC was a bit like that at that stage too in terms of the drivers on the grid, but it was going through a pretty major renaissance. There was a big buzz about the thing and the crowds were phenomenal.”

That is what drew the now 50-year-old in the first place, but what is it that keeps the BTCC at the heart of the UK motor racing calendar? Plato has firm opinions: “The TV, without a shadow of a doubt, is the major thing. The viewer can sit back for 25 minutes, watch and think, ‘Christ, that was a really good race’.”

“There’s action, overtaking, crashes, and it’s all compressed into a short, sharp show. You can see that every Sunday, at lunchtime, 1500 or 1700. People’s lives, over the past two decades, have become so busy that they haven’t got time to sit down and watch a grand prix – that’s why the TV numbers are disappearing.

“The BTCC is almost structured around the modern world – the format is perfect. People can associate with the road cars. They see a Honda or a Subaru, and they love it, as do the paying public. The drivers aren’t precocious superstars. There is fan engagement, you can see the mechanics at work in the pits and it’s great value for money. There are no pitstops or strategy: who is first on the road is first on the road. It’s exciting for drivers to be involved in it too. Once you’re there, you realise it’s one of the best games in town.”

And that’s why he is still here after all this time. Plato is unlikely to stop playing this game any time soon.