Why Plato sticks with the BTCC

"I quite like my own bed actually." Conversations with Jason Plato tend to go off-piste. But here, he's actually on-point. "I don't want to go around the world. Flying around the world is great when you're 28. But I don't want to live out of hotels. I like going home to my family."

Now let's really go off-piste. Slightly. Two of my colleagues like to consider motorsport 'what ifs?'. Suppositions dominate this world, we're all guilty of it - and it's an entertaining and harmless way to engage in them.

Anybody following the British Touring Car Championship over the last few years, watching Plato add another pole and another win to his ever-increasing all-time-best tallies, has probably considered the same question. What if Jason Plato wasn't here?

That could have been the case easily enough. Twice, in fact. His departure from the series after his 2001 title triumph - and the tumultuous breakdown in the relationship between him and Yvan Muller - is well known, because what followed was an unsuccessful transition to the fledgling Rockingham-based ASCAR stock car series.

The second instance was SEAT's move into the BTCC in 2004, which originally had Plato racing in the European Touring Car Championship instead of Britain. Some felt it was odd he never made the full transition to the world championship, but the two-time British champ says it was never his programme. Better to position yourself as the lynchpin of the marque's UK marketing strategy. Which is hardly a bad situation to be in.

"It's very simple for me," he says. It was a simple question: why have you never left the BTCC?

"We've got some scales here," he demonstrates with his hands, "and weights that tip them: the BTCC has many more weights than any other formula. As I've got older the mass of those weights has increased as it fits in with my lifestyle.

"First, the racing is great. Second, you can make a really good career in it. And arguably that's more important as time goes on. Certainly since 2003 I would say I've been the highest-paid touring car driver in Europe. And that's quite important because it's my job."

If you took a superficial look at the BTCC grid, you might think Plato's a bit mad. The paid professionals aren't in Britain - of those earning money out of touring-car racing, most are in the DTM and some are in the WTCC. There might be four drivers on the BTCC grid, Plato included, who actually earn a salary. Only one or two of those are doing so from the 'team' that employs them.

Ah, that's the point. Plato's a savvy SOB - the stories of how he has pieced together his various manufacturer deals over the last few years are paddock legend(ish). So let him explain.

"The reason why that is so is because of the platform the BTCC gives someone like me and manufacturers," he says.

"The TV's great, and it's UK-based. If you look at when Andy Priaulx won the WTCC, nobody here knows who he is. That's wrong, but that's the way it is. And because nobody knows who he is, his value in the commercial world outside of motor racing is a lot lower than mine.

"Because of the way the landscape of motor racing has changed, long gone are the days where there are three or four manufacturers and you'd sit on your arse, you'd pick up the phone, do a deal and get paid half a million a year.

"But they are still achievable - you've just got to attack it a different way. There's no other formula in Europe that gives you the foundation/potential for the return in investment that would enable you to go to market and find genuine partners and sponsors that, in the big picture, allow everyone to get paid very well.

"The BTCC is the only series, easily, in Europe that provides that commerciality. And that's one of the reasons I'm in it. But, ultimately, the racing's bloody great and it's a very difficult thing to win."

And he did win it. Twice. But after the first time, in 2001, staying in touring cars wasn't an option. By the end of the year, the Plato/Muller axis was in shreds. Plato's deal was up, Muller was to be retained by Vauxhall/Triple Eight.

Plato had his eye on something new. So he buggered off to Rockingham with an American dream as his compass and a primitive stock car as his mount.

"At that point in time I would have thought I was heading to America," he recalls. "There were conversations going on between Rockingham, Charlottes and Roushes, all these sorts of peoples. In my mind, that's where I was going. It was a two- or three-year project to try to crack it.

"I wish that had kicked off. Even though I didn't find ASCAR easy - if I'm honest it was a little scary at times, and I think that's predominantly because we didn't have the car working - I can imagine if I'd got involved like Marcos Ambrose did, had that happened to me it could have been quite sensational.

"There's something very special about NASCAR and the racing. It's very easy to take the piss out of it but it's very tricky, very scientific - there's a lot of strategy. It's big-balls stuff.

"I would have loved to have had a go at that - and earning £25 million would be pretty fucking cool."

But it didn't work. And as it happens, that's worked out quite well for Plato.

It's no great surprise to put together an active list of all-time race winners and wind up with a collection of drivers competing in national championships populating the lead order. Craig Lowndes' ton of V8 Supercars triumphs has him clear of a fierce race for second between four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, Lowndes' Red Bull team-mate Jamie Whincup and Plato, all on 92 wins.

Long careers at the sharp end in championships with plenty of races mean those drivers are well clear of world-conquering individuals like Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. And even one ahead of Michael Schumacher. Plato, unsurprisingly, finds that a source of great satisfaction.

"To me, having a career in motorsport and earning a few quid, it doesn't get much better than that. I've been very fortunate, some of the routes I've taken have turned out well. It's great, and I'm still at the top of my game. To have 92 international career wins, and look at destination-formula only, I'm equal-second on the all-time list. I just race around the UK! When I look back in years to come... wow."

Plato's newest project in the BTCC is bearing some ripe fruit. After a career that took in factory stints with Renault, Vauxhall, SEAT, Chevrolet and MG, he's now plying his trade in an independently-run Volkswagen CC with a two-year-old team run by a man who calls himself 'The Farmer'.

Team BMR, led by Warren Scott, is tearing up trees in the BTCC, going from an old-spec SEAT Leon to four VW CCs with Plato and 2014 champion Colin Turkington leading the line in just two years. It has two excellent engineering minds on board in Carl Faux and Kevin Berry, with seasoned team boss Alan Cole steering the ship.

The net result for Plato is he's leading the points, driving as well as ever and has 100 wins and a third title in sight. So don't expect him to quit any time soon.

"I've still got two-and-a-half years left on the contract and there's reason to think it'll continue," he says. "At the beginning of last year I made the decision I wasn't going to try to renew with MG. It was time for another chapter. And what's happened is pretty cool.

"When I told people early on they said, 'Are you fucking mad?' And I said, 'No I'm not, actually'. I know how good Carl and Kevin are, I know how determined and focused Warren is, I know he's got the right resources; it was an easy decision for me. You're still putting your balls on the line, but I quite like that."

For Plato, that fresh motivation is important. But it's not as though without it he'd consider hanging up his helmet.

"Ultimately, if I didn't wake up in the morning and get excited about racing I wouldn't do it. If the racing was dull, I'd probably look elsewhere.

"But the BTCC just fits with me, and the more I've done the more it's my brand. And when the racing's great and it has all these other great attributes, it's very difficult to think, 'You know what, I'll go and do that'.

"Something really special would have to come along to get me out of it."

Something like the Le Mans 24 Hours?

"There's still a burning desire to do Le Mans, but it has to be on my terms," he admits. "I've got to be in a good car and have two proper team-mates. Unless I've got those ingredients I'm not interested."

That, Plato says, is an opportunity unlikely to come around while he's tied up in the middle of a touring car programme. And as he insists there are a few more miles left on the clock before he gives in, it could be a while away yet, if it happens at all.

Which means his home comforts take a bit of a back seat for a while. But Plato doesn't mind putting that on hold - though he admits he's sorry for putting his family through the emotional wringer on occassion.

"It takes an awful amount mentally, a certain mindset," he muses. "And that's often not compatible with harmonious... it's hard to say. You need to be in a certain frame of mind. I'm quite selfish, even when I'm around at home I'm not really - I'm deep in thought. Unless I was enjoying racing I wouldn't want to put other people through that!

"And the other thing is if I wasn't quick enough I'd stop. But I don't see any signs of that."