Plato to make BTCC return as team owner in 2026

Record British Touring Car Championship race winner Jason Plato is making a high-profile return to the championship next year as a team owner.

Plato, who won 97 races for the likes of Williams Renault, Vauxhall, Seat Sport, Chevrolet, MG, and Subaru as well as two championship titles during a glittering 24 year career, announced the news at the penultimate race weekend of the current BTCC season at Silverstone.

“It's really exciting,” he told Louise Goodman on the BTCC broadcast on ITV in the UK. “I'm now a team owner. So, disappointedly for some fans or not, as the case may be, I'm not going to be driving the car.

“We're going to be running two cars next year in the British Touring Club Championship. I can't tell you who with or what, but we will be out there. We're very close to enormous sponsors that I think they're over the line. And these are sponsors that have never been involved in motorsport before.
“But I certainly can't tell you what manufacturer, what chassis, who the drivers are, who the team members are, for commercial reasons. But the great news is, I'm back.

Plato revealed that the move to become a team owner came at the end of a tumultuous time in his personal life, where struggles mounted following his retirement from driving at the end of the 2022 season. Having got his life on track, he credits his new team as being a key part of that journey.

“Ever since karting, all through my racing career, emotion is the enemy,” he said. “You can't have emotion in the racing car, and also you can't have emotion in a paddock. It's a job, I'm here to do a job, and I became very good at blocking emotion out and thought I had everything under control. Well, guess what? That really affected me, retiring from motor racing.

“I lost my identity. But also in the space of six weeks from that happening, my TV work stopped for no other reason but they've done a different course of action, a lot of my investments went pear-shaped – my fault, because I'm not an investment bloke, I'm a spender – and also my marriage broke down. And all those four things happening was pretty rough. Actually, I mean, very dark. And it was Ross Brawn, a great pal of mine, who managed to get me back in the world again by embarking on a new career in keynote speaking.

Plato called time on his illustrious driving career after the 2022 BTCC season-finale at Brands Hatch. Photo by Dominik Wilde

“And then one thing led to another, and here we are with a race team. Mental health amongst all people, but particularly amongst men, we don't speak about that sort of stuff. 

“I think it's vitally important. I started to get better through trusting people – there's not many people in the world you can trust. We all know, that's just a fact of life. But it also taught me that you realize who your friends are, your real, true friends are, and if you've got that many in your life, you do rather well, actually.

“But speaking to people, it was key because you get locked into this terrible spiral dive when, if I said you wouldn't believe this, but I didn't leave the house for six months. I took the mirrors down, every mirror down, I hated myself.

“I thought I was locked in the dark side forever, and now I've most definitely got my mojo back. I'm up at five in the morning. It's brilliant. I've moved back to Oxford, or in the process of moving back to Oxford. I've got another chance, and I'm grasping it with both hands.

Details of Plato’s new project are thin, but he said more information should be revealed following the conclusion of the BTCC season at Brands Hatch next month.

“Not until after Brands Hatch,” he said. “I would think by the end of October, we'll be in a position to explain a little bit more.

“We're talking big, big stuff. My mantra is, if you’re going to get wet, you may as well go swimming. Honestly, this is my proudest moment ever.”

Plato will somewhat be following in the footsteps of his long-time BTCC rival Matt Neal, who initially took over the running of his family's Team Dynamics operation from his father Steve Neal.

Neal now serves as team manager for Restart Racing following Team Dynamics' withdrawal from the BTCC ahead of the 2023 season. It has since been in partnership with the leading Excelr8 team, providing personnel and facilities to the Hyundai team.