Plato returns with RML Chevrolet

Jason Plato has secured a last-minute drive for the season opening round at Brands Hatch and will race a 2008-spec Chevrolet Lacetti for the RML team.

The BTCC star had looked likely to sit out the 2009 season after he lost his drive following SEAT’s withdrawal at the end of last year. However he will now enter the first rounds of the championship in a privately entered Chevrolet.

RML have not been seen in the BTCC since they ran the works SEAT effort in 2004. Prior to this the team achieved a multitude of success in the British championship, winning seven drivers, teams and manufacturers titles in the nineties when they ran the works Vauxhall and Nissan squads respectively. They have since been concentrating on operating the works Chevrolet team in the World Touring Car Championship.

The car which they are entering Jason Plato in is one of the 2008 machines which the team built for last year’s world championship. Although the team are responsible for the works Chevrolet cars in the world championship, their entry into the BTCC is totally independent of their involvement with Chevrolet and represents a seperate venture.

Plato admits he is excited to be reunited with the team he raced for in 2004, and told btcc.net “Right now, I’m just very excited to be teaming back up with some good friends and respected colleagues at RML.

“This was too good an opportunity to miss. The BTCC has played such an important role in my life so being at Brands Hatch is hugely important to me personally. Whether my being there makes Fabrizio look over his shoulder I don’t know – all I know is that my job is not to make it easy for him, or indeed for any other driver on the grid.

However the team’s entry so far is only for the season-opening Brands Hatch meeting, and Plato admits that it could be difficult to remain in the championship for the whole season. “At the moment, we don’t know how long we’ll be around. We’re trying tremendously hard behind the scenes to put together a full programme for 2009.”

One significant challenge the team faces is getting the most out of the car on the Dunlop tyres that the BTCC uses. In the WTCC the RML Chevrolet team are used to running on Yokohama rubber, so one of the team’s first main challenges will be fine tuning the car to Dunlop this weekend.