Plato on the civil war for his BTCC crown: 'It was disgusting'

“So though the competition was down in terms of numbers, it was still very tough at the sharp end. For me it was no different than other seasons.”

Plato got the year underway in a solid fashion with a second and a win at Brands Hatch, but after six races, Muller had four wins to the Englishman’s sole victory. It already looked like the Frenchman might steal a march towards the crown.

“There was many stages in ‘01 which I can look back on fondly because I had to raise my game,” says Plato. “There were trigger points, and going into the summer break, in all honestly Yvan was just a little bit quicker than we were. He really got himself aligned with the car just a little bit better.”

To make matters worse, the way the championship had been going started to affect Plato’s driving.

“The pressure started to build internally within me,” he remembers. “I probably started to grip the wheel a bit too tight, over-searching for that extra bit of pace and then you make things even worse.

“[Team co-owner and former F1 driver] Derek Warwick had a chat with me before the summer saying ‘Look, just keep going, think about ways you can find this time.’ When I came back, we turned the tables. The pace was on my side of the garage now, and Yvan then got himself into a bit of a pickle. Again, he was only off by a tiny bit, but he started to get edgy.”

Plato capitalised on the momentum to put together a string of wins which hauled him back into contention by the time of the third to last event at Silverstone – but going in the opposite direction was the atmosphere in the team garage as the battle intensified.

“In terms of politics internally within the team, what Yvan’s view of what he did in the races is very different to what he did in reality,” says Plato. “I can’t cope with that.

“There were definitely two sides of the garage, with a line running through it”

“If we’re in the team bus having a frank and open discussion then I demand 100% truth, and that’s not what was there that year. So it just became really f****** boring to be honest.

“And it was difficult because there were definitely two sides of the garage, with a line running through it, and it was not nice at all.

“I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about the politics of motor sport.”

Plato would hit those sometimes undiplomatic racing relations head on with incidents at both Silverstone and the season finale at Brands Hatch – things first starting to unravel during the final laps in Northamptonshire.

“Going into the last round, I thought ‘This is going to be a bit fruity,’” says Plato. “I even had my lawyer with me, because you knew something was going to kick off – and guess what, it did!”

“Lo and behold Derek comes into our little debrief before Brands qualifying to say the stewards wanted to see me as soon as possible.

“They basically told me it had been brought to their attention that I had too many points on my racing licence to compete.

“Derek said, ‘A few weeks ago we were at Silverstone, why weren’t we told then?’ They replied, ‘We weren’t aware of it then.’ ‘How are you aware now?’

Perhaps Plato could have predicted the reply.

“‘Roland Dane came and told us,’ the stewards said. Derek managed to get dispensation from the other teams so I could race, but I now knew that no matter what happened I would not be retained by the team at the end of the year – there was just no way.”

Torrential conditions greeted the BTCC field for that final race of the year, with Plato just ahead on points. He had been lobbying for the race not to occur at all, but in the end, the weather would look down favourably on the Englishman.

To take the title, Muller needed a win with Plato third or worse, and early on in the race it appeared the Frenchman had got his wish – Plato spun off at Surtees, and it looked like it was all over.

“Everything slowed down,” remembers Plato. “Probably in real time it took a second and a half, but it felt like ten minutes.

“I already had the car in reverse, and I thought there’s a good chance I could almost spring off the tyre barrier and, you never know, get back on track – which is actually what happened!”

Plato managed to gingerly get back onto the slippery asphalt, but spent the next lap admonishing himself.

“I felt quite lonely and hollow”

“I had real pace straight away, but it was a pretty awful place to be – I’d probably just tossed the championship down the road, and felt quite lonely and hollow,” he says.

“But you just have to crack on, and then Yvan made some mistakes…”

The Frenchman had indeed made several errors at the same spot as Plato, and had been fiercely ploughing through the wet, muddy turf as he cut the corner each time. He had maintained position, but at what cost?

It soon became clear.

A safety car had been called out due the sheer number of cars stranded in the gravel trap, and whilst following, flames began to sprout from underneath Muller’s now-leading Astra. The punishment which he put his car through off-track had damaged the oil rut, causing a fire. Abandoning the flaming Vauxhall meant Muller was out, and the title was Plato’s. Urged on by Warwick on the radio, Plato managed to finish second in the race through all the chaos.

He was out of the team, out of a drive for the 2002 season, but five years after having doorstepped Frank Williams to get his first BTCC drive, Plato was champion.

“It was a relief, and a great sense of achievement, actually, because we weren’t just fighting a fair battle,” he says.

“As a driver, I have utmost respect for Yvan. He’s phenomenally talented, bloody quick, complete car control etc. He’s brilliant, a clever, clever guy. But as a human being, not my cup of tea.

“Did I feel any karma? Maybe.”