Plato on his mighty Vauxhall Astra BTCC winner: 'Simply brilliant'

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Triple Eight's Vauxhall Astra Coupe dominated the BTCC in the early 2000s – Jason Plato remembers a triumphant tin-top challenger

Muller Plato

Vauxhall Astra Coupe dominated BTCC in early '00s

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It might have had few competitors when it won the drivers’, teams’ and constructors’ titles in its BTCC season debut, but the Vauxhall Astra Coupe’s achievements are no less impressive for that.

Mainly because it won all the titles again the next season, when the competitors truly did turn up. And the season after that. And the one after that too.

The 12 BTCC championships and 66 race wins garnered in those four seasons define the Astra as one of the greatest British touring cars ever produced.

Jason Plato, who took his debut drivers’ crown with it in 2001, agrees, saying it was quite simply “a brilliant bit of kit.”

It turned out to be the four-wheel poster child for the BTCC’s new BTC dawn which started that year, with main protagonists, Vauxhall Triple Eight Racing team-mates Yvan Muller and Plato, fighting tooth and nail behind the wheel.

17 Nov 2000: Jason Plato of the Holden Racing Team in his teams pit during the V8 Supercars practice session at Mount Panorama, Bathurst, Australia. X Digital Image. Mandatory Credit: Nick Wilson/ALLSPORT

Plato won out in hard fought first BTTC title, and remembers the Astra with fondness

Nick Wilson/ALLSPORT

If it wasn’t one of those fierce rivals winning races, then it was either James Thompson or Phil Bennett in the semi-satellite Egg team doing so instead.

BTC was the new, slightly slower, more cost-effective successor to the Super Touring regulations which had thrilled fans throughout the ‘90s but ultimately forced a technological arms race, leading to many works efforts pulling out.

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The championship attempted to right itself by introducing cheaper cars with simpler technology but at first there were only three takers – Vauxhall, Peugeot and MG, plus a few independents – leading to a seven-car top class grid entered for the 2001 opener at Brands Hatch.

As often happens when a new set of tech rules come in, Triple Eight had spotted the chance to get ahead of the opposition with its new car – and did so spectacularly.

“It was back in the days where we had a proper design team and a proper budget and a proper time to do things,” says then Triple Eight engineer Kevin Berry.

“Ludo Lacroix was the technical director and John Morton was chief designer. We started during the summer of 2000, when the Vauxhall Vectra wasn’t that strong in Super Touring.

“With the new regulations coming along, I think we were probably aware that we were one of the main players, because we still had a strong manufacturer programme designing a new car [in comparison to competitors].”

The new Astra had a similar power output to its predecessor but was heavier (due to less carbon composite components) and less advanced tech used in various areas.

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2001 triumph was followed straight away by more glory in ’02

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Berry describes the new rules as being “much more cut and dry.” The days of Williams bringing several truck loads of tyres to test its Renault Laguna or Ford gluing its Mondeo windscreen wipers in a certain position for qualifying trim – as it was known to do in ’98 – were over.

When Plato and Muller first came to test the Astra in Spain for pre-season, the former admits to at first being disappointed, then coming to a slow realisation that he might have something special on his hands.

“Thinking back to when we all first drove those cars, those who had come from Super Touring all had the same sort of feeling: ‘Oh no, what’s happened here?!’” he laughs.

“It felt like a big step down in performance: the cars were heavier, less downforce, weren’t as highly stressed, a lot of the nice bits of engineering had been removed because they weren’t allowed anymore. No anti-roll bar adjustments, diff-technology was more basic and so were the tyres.”

However as Triple Eight got miles on the board, Plato describes the change in mood.

“Those feelings didn’t last very long because ultimately a racing car on the limit is a racing car on the limit,” he says. “If you look at the time delta, it actually wasn’t that massive.

“It was apparent from very early days that they had produced something which was really well balanced, easy to drive, quite user friendly – as a car, it didn’t really have sharp teeth.

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After Plato departure, Thompson and Muller cleaned up with Astra

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“The BTC car was just a bit easier [than Super Touring], there wasn’t so many parameters to change, you didn’t go down set-up rabbit holes, everything we threw at it seemed to work – it was still great to drive.”

Berry concurs, saying the fast, well-balanced machine was the result of a holistic approach.

“There’s never one magic bullet, never one technical thing that makes a difference,” he reasons.

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“For me, the secret to success is getting all the details right. We had a really strong team of people, but also a very good mentality of looking for the best performance with the best efficiency.

“I guess the secret was deciding how to best use the resources.”

Triple Eight’s head start on the competition immediately showed. Lining up at that first Brands race in the BTC class were the four works Vauxhalls and three works Peugeot 406s.

Muller would lead home Plato in an emphatic 1-2 for that first race, with those two often trading winner and runner-up placings, but with Thompson often a factor too.

Hardly a stellar field in terms of competitiveness, but that in fact made the season even more intense between Plato and Muller, seemingly knocking chunks out of each other at every round in one of the BTCC’s greatest ever title fights.

Despite the ferocity of the rivalry, no-one else got a look-in – Triple Eight carved up a devastating 25 out 26 races in that debut year, with Peugeot works effort obliterated and the later-entered MG ZS run by WSR managing a single win via a kind safety car.

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Clean sweep title quartet was completed in 2004

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“I reckon we would have had it if that SC hadn’t come out,” laughs Berry of a clean-sweep denied. “I’m still bitter about that!”

Plato would prevail be the first to win the drivers’ title in the compact yet effective Astra before departing, with James Thompson’s titles in ’02 and ’04 sandwiching an ’03 crown for Muller.

“I mean, I don’t look back tremendously fondly on the season, because it was fraught with so many moods and quite dreadful politics!” says Plato.

“But I remember that car with an enormous affection. It was brilliant and I was lucky to be a works driver then.”

Able to keep himself at arm’s length from the inter-team politics, Berry is only effusive in remembering that period.

“They really were the days,” he says. “I’m still in touch with a lot of the guys in the team, and everyone still remembers 2001 right through to 2009 with the Vectra [Triple Eight / Vauxhall would win at least one title in all but one season up to 2010] as the golden era.”