How Not to Be a Professional Racing Driver

Pre-order your copy of the full-throtle memoir, How Not to Be a Professional Racing Driver, now!

My name is Jason Plato. Two-time championship-winning and record-breaking racing driver, television presenter, voiceover artist, pilot, bon viveur, hedonist, robber, former inmate of the Monaco police department and a living, breathing example of what you shouldn't do if you want to become a professional racing driver.

That's not some idiotic tabloid claim, by the way. That's genuinely who I am. I drink, I smoke, I don't go to the gym and I rarely stick to the script when talking to the media. Yet I'm still racing, and at the same level I was when I first won a seat with the Williams Touring Car Team over twenty years ago.

It's no coincidence that I've won more races in the British Touring Car Championship than any other driver and over twice as many as the drivers who've won more championships. Then again, it's also no coincidence that I once spent several days in prison in Monaco for stealing a JCB. There is nothing sensible, predictable or considered about me, I'm afraid. This is my story.

Jason Plato is one of the biggest characters in UK motor racing, and one of the most controversial. Since bursting onto the karting scene at the end of the 1970s he has gone on to either upstage or upset dozens of drivers, team owners and team managers - not to mention the odd policeman and nightclub owner. Despite that he is the British Touring Car Championship's most successful driver ever having won an astonishing 96 races and two championships, with more race wins than Lewis Hamilton.

Since 2004, Jason has also co-presented the popular motoring magazine series Fifth Gear, which recently aired its 23rd series. Jason is also a weekly regular on James Martin's hugely popular current show, Saturday Morning, on ITV.

How Not to Be a Professional Racing Driver is his first book.