Vital statistics
2005 4th BTCC Drivers' Championship with SEAT Sport UK - with 3 race wins and
11 podiums
2nd in the FIA European Touring Car Cup at Vallelunga
Fifth Gear Television Presenter
Flew a Sea Harrier jump jet
Autosport National Racing Driver of the Year nominee
2004 3rd BTCC Drivers'
Championship with SEAT Sport UK
- with 7 race wins, 13 podiums
and more racing laps led than
any other driver.
BRDC Silver Star Winner
Fifth Gear (C5) Television Presenter
Speed Sunday (ITV1 - Live) Television
Presenter
Racing Rivals television presenter,
with Terri Dwyer
1000kms Bathurst with Holden Racing
Team - DNF
Autosport National Racing Driver
of the Year nominee
2003 Holiday Inn SEAT Cupra Championship
Driver Mentor
Racing Rivals television presenter,
with Nell McAndrew
2002 3rd Ascar Championship
Winner of the Mintex Most Popular
Driver Award
2001 British Touring Car Champion
- with 8 wins, 17 podiums, 7 poles
and 11 fastest laps
BRDC Silver Star Winner
Autosport National Racing Driver
of the Year nominee
2000 5th BTCC with Vauxhall 888
Motorsport - 3 wins, 5 podiums
and 2 poles
10th 1000kms Bathurst with Holden
Racing Team
1999 5th BTCC with Williams Renault
Nescafe Blend 37 - 1 win, 3 podiums
and 1 pole
1998 5th BTCC with Williams Renault
Nescafe Blend 37 - 1 win, 6 podiums
and 2 poles
1997 3rd BTCC with Williams Renault
- 2 wins, 9 podiums and 4 poles
Standing Record Pole Position
for 3 debut races
1000kms Bathurst with Williams
Renault Merpati ANZ - retired
from lead. Set fastest
lap and standing Super Touring
lap record
Autosport National Racing Driver
of the Year nominee
1996 Elf Renault Spider UK Cup
Champion - 11 wins, 2 podiums,
13 poles and 9 fastest laps
1st European Renault Spider Race
at British GP support race
Autosport Club Racing Driver of
the Year nominee
1995 3 races in the Formula Renault
Sport European Championship
1994 BTCC Test Driver with Nissan
Old Spice Racing
1993 5th British Formula Vauxhall
Championship with Martin Donnely
Talking Pages
1992 British Formula 3 Championship
in works Duckhams Van Diemen,
run by Team
Lotus P1 Engineering
1991 European Formula Renault
Champion in works Duckhams Van
Diemen
4th British Formula Renault Championship
in works Duckhams Van Diemen -
10 wins,
9 poles and 11 fastest laps
Autosport Club Racing Driver of
the Year nominee
1990 Racing Car Debut
5th British Formula Renault Championship
with Manor Motorsport - 1 win,
3 podiums, 1 pole and 4 fastest
laps
1989 Winfield Pilote Elf School
- 2nd overall in Pilote Elf Championship.
Most successful British driver
in history of school
1980-'87 Karting - internationally
from 1983
1983 Junior World 'Grand Prix'
Champion
Multiple British Kart Champion
Multiple British Kart Team Member
The story so far
Born in Oxford, England in
1967 and educated at Kings
School, Tynemouth in the
Newcastle Upon Tyne, Jason Plato’s
father worked in the motor
trade and accepted a racing
kart as a bad debt. Little did
he know that this would launch
his son on a highly successful
career which would make him one
of British motorsport’s
most charismatic and popular
racing personalities.
So, at
the tender age of
11, Jason started to drive
this crotchety old kart around
the petrol pumps on Sundays when
the garage was closed. Jason
then had exclusive use of
the kart after his father blew
the engine, spun and vowed never
to drive it again – so
aged 12 Jason began
racing, on local kart tracks
in Northumberland.
‘Naturally
talented’ is
an over-used expression,
but it’s certainly not
out of place when
describing Jason – for
he quickly became
British Kart Champion and,
in 1983, Junior World 'Grand
Prix' Champion.
Having left
school at
17, Jason had a variety of
jobs, including managing a Saxoe
shoe shop and selling Kirby vacuum
cleaners door-to-door. He
also helped his father set up
an insurance marketing company,
who he worked for in London for
two years with the express aim
of introducing himself to potential
racing sponsors.
After some research,
Jason attended a
two-week course at the famous
Winfield racing school in
France, where he finished runner-up
and just missed out on a fully
paid drive in the French Formula
Renault Championship. He was
the top British driver the school
had ever seen, and having attracted
the attention of Renault
UK, and with sponsors met in
the insurance business, Jason
made his racing car debut in
the 1990 British Formula Renault
Championship – initially
with Cuda Motorsport
and then, after six races, with
Manor Motorsport, the leading
team in the formula.
To this
day, Jason remains “indebted” to
three men who influenced
his early racing
- John Booth, owner of Manor
Motorsport, Ralph Firman Snr.,
boss of Van Diemen, and Tim
Jackson of Renault UK. Booth
gave Jason his break in 1990,
and having finished 5th in
Formula Renault that year,
Jason moved up to the works
Duckhams Van Diemen
in 1991, scoring 10 wins, nine
poles and 11 fastest laps on
his way to 4th in the British
series, and also winning the
European Formula Renault title.
In 1992 Jason raced the rather
revolutionary works
Duckhams Van Diemen Formula
3 car in the British F3 Championship,
run by Team
Lotus P1 Engineering. He
led races but ran out of
money mid-season and was forced
to stop. Jason’s
most disappointing
year in racing was compounded
when he broke his ankle in
a karting accident – it
was certainly a season
to resign to the history
books.
In 1993 he raced with Martin
Donnely Racing, finishing
5th in the British Vauxhall
Lotus Championship, but money
to continue to progress in
single seaters was lacking.
Having been tipped as a potential
future F1 star, an impoverished
Plato got a job as a racing
instructor at Silverstone to “avoid
getting a proper
job” and
in 1994 and ’95
did very little racing.
He decided to change career
slightly and pursue a touring
car drive, and during this
time he landed a deal as test
driver Nissan Old Spice Racing – not
least because the
team owner of Janspeed was
his uncle and the number one
driver, Keith Odor, was his
cousin! Thoughts of racing
in the 1995 BTCC vanished when
Nissan withdrew from racing
in the UK and then,
tragically, Keith was killed
racing in Berlin in September
1995.
Jason wrestled with the
concept of
quitting motorsport, but
decided to give his career one
last go. He spent every last
penny he had on a computer to
prepare sponsorship proposals
and in the autumn of 1995 he
negotiated a deal with Manor
Motorsport to do three races
in the Formula Renault Sport,
with backing from Swan National
Leasing.
It was a great success,
and Renault UK’s Tim
Jackson and John Millett (Radbourne
Racing) talked Jason
into contesting an all-new
series in 1996, the Elf Renault
Spider UK Cup Championship,
in a car run by Mardi Gras
Motorsport. It was a big gamble,
but with a Championship winning
prize of a works test with
the Williams Renault BTCC team,
it was billed as a stepping
stone to the BTCC.
With continued support from
Swan National Vehicle
Leasing, Jason dominated
the 12 race series, with 11 wins
from 13 poles securing the
title. Even the prize-winning
test went perfectly.
Jason had achieved everything
he could have done in 1996,
but a letter from Frank Williams
at the end of year was devastating.
Williams was looking for
a household name to race
in its 1997 BTCC team and
Jason wasn’t
it. Bye.
“I woke up
one
Tuesday morning full of rage
and drove down to see Frank,” recalls
Jason. “I arrived at
nine o’clock , walked
in with a suitcase – it
was completely empty but I
thought it looked good - and
Frank’s PA said
I couldn’t just come
in off the street and demand
to see one of the
most influential people in
motorsport and anyway, he wasn’t
in! I had made a big stance
and I wasn’t
going to be been
blown out by a PA, so I decided
to sit in my car and hijack
Frank when he arrived! The
three hour wait was the biggest
emotional rollercoaster of
my life, but when Frank’s
car pulled up I chased
after it and begged him for
five minutes of his time – and
fair play to him
he gave me five minutes. Two
days after our meeting Frank
telephoned to invite me to
a test at Snetterton. It was
the final test to
decide which driver would race
in the Williams Renault BTCC
team and the best man would
get the job. I got the job,
and since then I haven’t
looked back.”
Jason immediately
repaid Frank’s
faith by setting
pole on all
three of
his first BTCC races – a
debut record which
still stands
today. “When
I’m
old and grey and
people ask me ‘what
was the best moment
of your career’,
I think those three
pole positions
will be hard
to beat,” says
Jason.
Another unbroken
record,
established by Jason in 1997,
is the Super Touring Car
lap record which he set during
the Bathurst 1000km race in Australia.
With Alain Menu, Jason’s
Williams Renault Merpati ANZ
was in a class of its own and
holding a comfortable lead when
the differential broke.
Jason
enjoyed three highly
successful years with the
Williams Renault team, finishing
3rd in the 1997 BTCC and 5th
in 1998 and ‘99 – and
only left Williams
when the team’s
BTCC programme came
to an end.
Now with experience
and a racing pedigree
second to none, Jason’s
begging days were
well and truly over. As soon
as his services became available,
top teams were eager to employ
him and in 2000 he joined Vauxhall.
After three race victories, which
included winning on his BTCC
race debut with the team, he
once again finished 5 th in the
BTCC. He also returned to Bathurst
, and in torrential
rain he and team-mate Yvan Muller
took a V8 Holden to 10th place.
In 2001 Jason became British
Touring Car Champion,
winning eight races from
seven poles. But it wasn’t
quite as straightforward as that,
for the titanic battle
for the title was between Jason
and his team-mate, Yvan Muller,
and that didn’t
always fit comfortably
with team politics, particularly
as there was no quarter given
by either driver on the circuit.
Nor should there
have been says Jason.
“It
was just a case of
the best two drivers in the best
two cars racing for the title,
and it was hard fought,” admits
Jason. “It was like Prost
and Senna racing
at McLaren – it’s
what people want
to see, real wheel-to-wheel
stuff. There is no point being
nice to everyone if you are
doing all you can to beat them,
life just isn’t
like that. I left
at the end of the season sticking
two fingers up to the team,
which was a shame because what
was important, and still is,
was that I had won the title
and I’ll always
be extremely grateful
to the people at Vauxhall and
proud that I won the Championship.”
In
2002 Jason
raced in the UK-based Ascar
series, whetting his appetite
for the US-based NASCAR series
and racing ovals State-side one
day.
In 2003 Jason signed a three
year contract with
SEAT Sport UK . It was a
dream job that enabled him to
do the three things he loves
most – give
advice to young drivers
as the driver mentor in the Holiday
Inn SEAT Cupra Championship,
work on television
as presenter for ‘Racing
Rivals’ (the docu-soap
that follows the
drivers in the series) and
race in the BTCC. It also takes
Jason on a journey, where he
can help to develop a brand
new BTCC team and have an instrumental
influence of the direction
the team will take right from
day one.
Jason returned to
the BTCC
in 2004 for the first time
since he’d won the
title – and
in characteristic
style, took the series by
storm. Driving for the new
SEAT Sport UK team, Jason
took the Toledo Cupra to
its first race win on its
maiden BTCC race meeting
at Thruxton, setting a trend
for what
was to follow. By the end
of the season, Jason had
won seven races (two more
than any
other driver) and stood on
the podium 13 times to finish
3rd in the Drivers’ Championship – with
only the two previous
BTCC Champions, James Thompson
and Yvan Muller, ahead of
him. He also led more race
laps (161) than Thompson
(75) and Yvan Muller (72)
did added together, and ensured
SEAT Sport UK finished runners-up
in the Teams’ Cup
at its first attempt
at the BTCC.
Jason returned
to
Mount Panorama in 2004 for
his third attempt at the Bathurst
1000kms race, sharing a Holden
Racing Team VY Commodore
with Peter Brock. Whilst limping
back to the pits with a puncture,
Jason was hit hard off the
racing line
by John Cleland, putting
him out of the race. His trip
to Australia did improve, as
Jason stayed on to celebrate
his 37th birthday and become
engaged to girlfriend Sophie.
In 2004 Jason also continued
to expand his television
work. His passion for presenting
began in 1999, when
he co-presented ‘Driven’ on
Channel 4, which attracted
an audience of up to 3.5 million
viewers. This continued thru
to 2002 and was followed
in 2003 by the first series of ‘Racing
Rivals’, which he presented
with Nell McAndrew. It was
an incredibly successful groundbreaking
way of following drivers
in a racing series and was televised
on ITV1, ITV2, Motors TV
and Bravo and made into a nine
hour triple DVD set. In 2004
Jason co-presented a new live
motorsport show on ITV1 called ‘Speed
Sunday’, as well as ‘Fifth
Gear’ on Channel 5 and
the new series of ‘Racing
Rivals’ with ex-Hollyoaks
star Terri Dwyer, broadcast
on Channel 4, Motors TV and Bravo.
In 2005, Jason began the British Touring Car Championship as one of the favourites, but the competition was a lot tougher and a weight penalty on Super 2000 cars like the SEAT Toledo Cupra made racing with the front-running BTCC cars very difficult. Nonetheless, race wins at Oulton Park, Snetterton and Brands Hatch gave Jason 4th place in the Drivers' title and helped SEAT finish runners-up in the Manufacturers' Championship.
Jason's personal highlight of 2005 happened above ground - four and a half miles above sea level and at 650mph to be precise, when he became one of less than 200 people to fly a British Aerospace Sea Harrier F/A2. A keen pilot, Jason visited the Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) in Yeovilton to join the Royal Navy's supersonic low level fighter elite squadron and under the guidance of Commander Henry Mitchell, Jason flew the £22M air-to-air combat jet fighter in close formation. Having descended back down through the clouds, the climax came when Jason successfully hovered the jump jet over the airbase.
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