Timothy Jason Plato (born 14 October 1967) is a British former racing driver and former team principal/founder of Plato Racing. He last competed professionally in the 2022 British Touring Car Championship for BTC Racing. He has twice been BTCC Champion, in 2001 for Vauxhall and 2010 for Silverline Chevrolet.
Plato has finished in the top-three in the Championship 13 times and holds the record for the most overall race wins in the BTCC with 97 (94 overall) and 3 extra class wins. He has also served as a presenter on the motoring television series Fifth Gear since 2004.
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, Plato 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 two races as a rookie, taking third in the championship which was won by his team-mate Alain Menu. He was fifth in the series in each of the next two years.
Plato joined Vauxhall in 2000, again taking fifth place in the championship. 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.
ASCAR and Break from BTCC (2002–2003)
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, Plato was a driver coach for SEAT, returning to the BTCC with the Spanish team in 2004.
Plato 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. The regulations for 2004 meant that the driver who finished tenth in the first of the meeting's three 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-ten 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 fourth 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 ten meetings – his team-mates, double BTCC champion James Thompson and ex-DTM driver Darren Turner, shared the team's second Leon. After the first three meetings, he was a point behind Thompson and third 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 two laps to go. He won two out of the three 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 second in the championship, meaning that he had then finished in each of the top-five 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 ninth on the grid to come fifth in race 1 and then win race 2. He started race 3 from ninth (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 three 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 second 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. However, after holding talks over the off-season with West Surrey Racing and Tempus Sport, Plato decided to return to the BTCC in a privately entered RML Group Chevrolet Lacetti. After the first meeting, the team secured sponsorship from Silverline power tools and Auto Windscreens for the rest of the season, and raced under the Racing Silverline banner. At the final round of the season at Brands Hatch, Plato became only the second driver after Dan Eaves at Thruxton in 2005 to win all three races, the first of which he won by a then closest-ever BTCC winning margin of 0.015 seconds, ahead of Tom Chilton. He finished second in the 2009 championship, five points behind champion Colin Turkington.
For 2010, RML became an official Chevrolet manufacturer team, racing the Cruze model that races in the World Touring Car Championship, with Plato as lead driver. Plato was a championship challenger immediately, with a double victory at Snetterton returning him to the championship lead. He dominated the second half of the season and claimed the 2010 MSA Dunlop British Touring Car Championship by winning round 29 at Brands Hatch on 10 October 2010. His win was also his 60th, equalling Andy Rouse's BTCC record.
Plato remained with the same team in 2011 and won the first round of the season at Brands Hatch, setting a new BTCC record of 61 victories. He came third in the Championship.
MG KX Momentum Racing (2012–2014)
In 2012 and 2013, Plato raced for the Triple Eight Race Engineering (United Kingdom) team in their MG KX Momentum Racing MG6 and came 3rd in the Championship in both years. In 2014, with a similar but differently-sponsored car (MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save) under the same team, he came second in the championship.