Plato Racing Enters Administration As Jason Plato Departs The Team Bearing His Name

Nine months ago Jason Plato stood in front of the BTCC paddock and said he was building a team "from the floor upwards" that would have "the best in the business." Last weekend that team won at Knockhill and put two Mercedes on the podium together for the first time. This week it’s in administration, over £800,000 in the red, and Plato himself is out of it. Not stepping back. Out.

What actually happened

Plato Racing has been placed into administration with losses reported at more than £800,000. Title sponsor Cataclean has confirmed it will provide interim funding to keep the team on track, and that drivers Adam Morgan and co-director Dan Rowbottom will continue, at least for this weekend’s Donington Park round, under a new entity: CPRL. Jason Plato, the man whose name is on the door, will have no further involvement in its management or ownership.

There’d been weeks of speculation. Plato denied it at last month’s Thruxton round. Confirmation that the team was in administration and up for sale broke earlier this week, days after its best result of the season.

The rise, in nine months

The timeline is worth setting out plainly, because of how fast it moved both ways. Plato announced the team in September 2025 with no manufacturer, builder or drivers confirmed, just a promise that "there will be people out there who will be really upset." RML built two Mercedes-AMG A35 Saloons. Dan Rowbottom and Adam Morgan, karting rivals since they were eight years old, signed as the driver pairing. The livery, in Cataclean purple, landed in April, backed by ASUS, Snap-On and Ciceley Commercials alongside Cataclean’s seventh year as title sponsor.

Rowbottom won the team’s first-ever race, the qualifying race at the Donington Park season opener, after Tom Ingram’s jump-start penalty handed it to him by 0.024 seconds. Morgan added a second win at Brands Hatch. Then, six race weekends in, the team finally cracked a full-points Sunday: Morgan led home Rowbottom for a Plato Racing 1-2 at Knockhill, in the wet, with Morgan pulling clear inside two laps from pole. "To be here on the top step with my team-mate is a day the whole team will remember for a very long time," Morgan said afterwards.

That was the weekend before the administration news broke.

What TOCA and Cataclean actually said

BTCC organiser TOCA’s statement was careful to draw a line between the team and the man: "The matters concerned are internal to the organisation and relate solely to its directors, shareholders and relevant parties. TOCA is not privy to those matters. However, TOCA has been provided with assurances of the team’s participation in the BTCC going forward." It went on to confirm the team will race on under new management, "without the further involvement of Jason Plato," while calling him "unquestionably one of the BTCC’s greatest stars" and "a valued part of the BTCC family."

Cataclean’s statement was more direct about why it’s stepping in: "Cataclean will provide interim funding for CPRL to continue while the future of the team is confirmed. While the team has continued to perform on track, several factors have necessitated changes to provide the team with the best possible opportunity to continue operating. Cataclean’s priority remains to support the very best outcome for the team. This includes keeping the team operational and safeguarding jobs and creditors."

Who’s still standing

Rowbottom isn’t just a driver here, he’s a co-director, and he’s had Cataclean’s backing since his Renault Clio Cup days, well before any of this started. Ross Baigent of Cataclean has been a director of the team since May, which puts the sponsor’s involvement in the boardroom months ahead of the administration news, not as a reaction to it. Morgan, fresh off the best result of his BTCC career with Plato Racing, keeps his seat too. On paper, the racing side of this survives the week largely intact. The ownership and the name above the door don’t.

The lesson for anyone backing a team, not just watching one

A title sponsor seven years into the relationship stepping in to fund a team through administration is, in its own way, the sponsorship story here. Cataclean didn’t walk when the news broke, it wrote a statement about protecting jobs and creditors and kept its name on the car. That’s what a genuinely committed partner looks like when things go wrong, and it’s worth more to a team than any launch-day press release.

The harder lesson is the one about the gap between the story a team tells in public and what’s happening in its accounts. Plato Racing looked, from the outside, like a masterclass in sponsorship: a seven-year title partner, a global tech brand signed before a wheel had turned, wins inside six race weekends. None of that stopped £800,000 in losses building up somewhere behind it. Good marketing and good racing results don’t automatically mean a business is solvent, and anyone sponsoring or investing in a team is buying into the accounts as much as the livery.

Sourced from Autosport and BTCC.net. Quotes, results and statements reported above, images credited to JEP via Motorsport Images.

Sources:

• Plato departs troubled BTCC team — Autosport
• BTCC Knockhill: Morgan heads Plato Racing 1-2 — Autosport
• BTCC Knockhill: Morgan claims qualifying race win for Plato team — Autosport
• BTCC Donington Park: Rowbottom gives Plato's team a debut win after Ingram penalty — Autosport
• Plato completes his Mercedes BTCC line-up — Autosport
• Brands Hatch Beckons For Cataclean Plato Racing — BTCC.net
• Plato plots BTCC return as team owner — Autosport