Jason Plato
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Jason Plato
Timothy Jason Plato (born 14 October 1967) is a British racing driver who last competed in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for BTC Racing. He has twice been BTCC Champion, in 2001 for Vauxhall and 2010 for Silverline Chevrolet. He has finished in the top 3 in the Championship 12 times and holds the record for the most overall race wins in the BTCC. He is also a presenter on the motoring television series ''Fifth Gear'' from 2004 to present. Career history After success in karting including a 1989 British Championship win in the Junior TKM Class, Oxford-born Plato raced in Formula Three and Formula Renault. In 1996, he entered the Renault Spider championship, taking a dominant title win. BTCC (1997–2001) Williams Renault (1997–1999) In 1997, he gained the second drive in the WilliamsF1, Williams-Renault British Touring Car Championship, BTCC team, after Frank Williams (Formula One), Frank Williams organised a test between him, Gianni Morbidelli and Jean-Christop ...
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Knockhill Racing Circuit
Knockhill Racing Circuit is a motor racing circuit in Fife, Scotland. It opened in September 1974 and is Scotland's national motorsport centre. The circuit is located in the countryside about north of Dunfermline. It is the only FIA approved circuit in Scotland. History The circuit opened in September 1974. It was created by joining service roads to a nearby disused mineral railway, closed in 1951, which served Lethans Colliery. The first car race was held on 18 May 1975. Between 1974 and 1983 the circuit had several different owners which helped to steadily develop the circuit's facilities and attractions. Derek Butcher became the owner in 1984 and since then Knockhill has been developed to a point where it is able to host rounds of most of the major British car and motorbike championships. The circuit hosted a round of the British Touring Car Championships for twelve years until the deal ended in 2002 with the promoters seeking infrastructure upgrades. Knockhill made improv ...
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British Formula 3 Championship
The British Formula Three Championship was an international motor racing series that took place primarily in the United Kingdom with a small number of events in mainland Europe. It was a junior-level feeder formula that used small single seater Formula Three chassis. Its final official title was the Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series. Notable former champions included Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, Rubens Barrichello, Takuma Sato, and Daniel Ricciardo. History The first Formula Three championship to take place in the UK was the ''Autosport F3'' championship held in 1951, which was won by Eric Brandon. By 1954, it had evolved into a national-level series and was organised by the British Racing and Sports Car Club (BRSCC).British F3 Champions
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Jean-Christophe Boullion
Jean-Christophe "Jules" Boullion (born 27 December 1969) is a French professional racing driver who raced in Formula One for the Sauber team. Career Born in Saint-Brieuc, near Côtes d'Armor, Boullion started karting in 1982 and moved to cars in 1988 after attending a racing school outside Paris. He started racing in Formula Ford 1600 in 1989. The following year he won the French title and moved to Formula 3. In 1993 he entered Formula 3000 and won the FIA International Championship in 1994. Although he was signed to test for Williams, he was loaned to Sauber to replace Karl Wendlinger for much of the 1995 season, scoring points twice but rarely matching his team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen. The following year he returned to his testing role at Williams, and he later tested for Jordan and Tyrrell. In 1997 he raced briefly in the Renault Spider Eurocup, and he campaigned a Renault Laguna touring car for the Williams team in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) in 1 ...
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Gianni Morbidelli
Gianni Morbidelli (born 13 January 1968) is an Italian racing driver. He participated in 70 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 11 March 1990. He achieved one podium, and scored a total of 8.5 championship points. He currently competes in the TCR International Series. Racing career Early career Morbidelli was born in Pesaro. His father, Giancarlo Morbidelli, was the founder of the Morbidelli motorcycle company which had some success in Grand Prix motorcycle racing. Morbidelli started karting in 1980. He won the EUR-AM championship in 1986, before moving to Italian Formula Three. He became Italian Formula 3 and Formula 3 European Cup champion in 1989, as well as winning two races in Italian Touring Cars. He then moved to the Scuderia Italia Formula One team, doing the first 2 races of the F1 season as stand-in for Emanuele Pirro, before concentrating on Formula 3000. He won 1 race and finished 5th in the 1990 championship, as well as undertaking test driver duties for Scuderia ...
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Frank Williams (Formula One)
Sir Francis Owen Garbett Williams (16 April 1942 – 28 November 2021) was a British businessman, racing car driver, and the founder of the Williams Formula One team. He was the team principal from its foundation in 1977 until 2020. During that period, the team won nine constructors' championships and seven drivers' championships. Early life On 16 April 1942, Williams was born in South Shields, County Durham. At the time, his father served as an active Royal Air Force officer, while his mother worked as a school teacher. Williams was partly raised by his aunt and uncle in Jarrow, after the breakdown of his parents' marriage. He subsequently spent much of his later childhood at a private boarding school, St Joseph's College, Dumfries, Scotland. In the late 1950s, a friend gave Williams a ride in his Jaguar XK150, which immediately served to catalyse his interest in fast cars.Matt JefferyFormula 1 Chronicles: Frank Williams, Highandbye.com, 21 June 2012 Motorsports caree ...
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Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured trucks, tractors, tanks, buses/coaches, aircraft and aircraft engines, and autorail vehicles. According to the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles, in 2016 Renault was the ninth biggest automaker in the world by production volume. By 2017, the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance had become the world's biggest seller of light vehicles. Headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, the Renault group is made up of the namesake Renault marque and subsidiaries, Alpine, Renault Sport (Gordini), Automobile Dacia from Romania, and Renault Samsung Motors from South Korea. Renault has a 43.4% stake with several votes in Nissan of Japan, and used to have a 1.55% stake in Daimler AG of Germany, it was sold off in ...
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WilliamsF1
Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, currently racing in Formula One as Williams Racing, is a British Formula One motor racing team and constructor. It was founded by former team owner Frank Williams and automotive engineer Patrick Head. The team was formed in after Frank Williams' earlier unsuccessful F1 operation: Frank Williams Racing Cars (which later became Wolf–Williams Racing in 1976). All of Williams F1 chassis are called "FW" then a number, the FW being the initials of team co-founder and original owner, Frank Williams. The team's first race was the 1977 Spanish Grand Prix, where the new team ran a March chassis for Patrick Nève. Williams started manufacturing its own cars the following year, and Switzerland's Clay Regazzoni won Williams' first race at the 1979 British Grand Prix. At the 1997 British Grand Prix, Canadian Jacques Villeneuve scored the team's 100th race victory, making Williams one of only four teams in Formula One, alongside Ferrari, fellow ...
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Renault Spider
The Renault Sport Spider is a roadster produced by the French automaker Renault Sport (a subsidiary of Renault) between 1996 and 1999. Project The idea for the Renault Spider was formulated in the early 1990s: in the midst of a revival after a difficult second half of the 1980s, Renault wanted a car to promote it as a sporting brand (similar to the Renault 5 Turbo from a decade earlier). The Spider was intended to both serve as a racing car, in a one-make series organized by Renault, and as a road car. The first prototypes for Project W94, as it was known at the time, were completed in mid-1994 and a concept version was presented to the public at the Geneva Motor Show a year later. The car went on sale in early 1996, assembled at the Alpine factory in Dieppe. Left hand drive versions were first produced with an aeroscreen device the same as the race cars. In 1997, a version with a full glass windscreen and wiper was made available. Approximately 1800 cars were produced through 1 ...
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Formula Renault
Formula Renault are classes of formula racing popular in Europe and elsewhere. Regarded as an entry-level series to motor racing, it was founded in 1971, and was a respected series where drivers can learn advanced racecraft before moving on to higher formulas. Renault now backs the French F4 Championship and Formula Regional European Championship. The World Series by Renault once included Formula Renault 3.5 before becoming World Series Formula V8 3.5 in 2016, then folding in 2017. Formula Renault 3.5L The most senior "Formula Renault" was the Formula Renault V6 Eurocup started by Renault to run as part of Eurosport's Super Racing Weekends ( ETCC and FIA GT Championship). Only two seasons were run between 2003 and 2004 before Renault left Super Racing Weekends and merged the series with the similar World Series by Nissan to create the Formula Renault 3.5 Series as part of the World Series by Renault in 2005. In 2016 the series became the World Series Formula V8 3.5, which fold ...
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Formula Three
Formula Three, also called Formula 3, abbreviated as F3, is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers. History Formula Three (adopted by the FIA in 1950) evolved from postwar auto racing, with lightweight tube-frame chassis powered by 500 cc motorcycle engines (notably Nortons and JAP speedway). The 500 cc formula originally evolved in 1946 from low-cost "special" racing organised by enthusiasts in Bristol, England, just before the Second World War; British motorsport after the war picked up slowly, partly due to petrol rationing which continued for a number of years and home-built 500 cc cars engines were intended to be accessible to the "impecunious enthusiast". The second post-war motor race in Britain was organised by the VSCC in July 1947 at RAF Gransden Lodge, 500cc cars being the only post-war class to run that day. Three of t ...
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Karting
Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on full-size motorsport circuits. Karting is commonly perceived as the stepping stone to the higher ranks of motorsports, with most of Formula One champions including Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Ayrton Senna, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen, and Fernando Alonso having begun their careers in karting. Karts vary widely in speed and some (known as superkarts) can reach speeds exceeding , while recreational go-karts intended for the general public may be limited to lower speeds. History American Art Ingels is generally accepted to be the father of karting. A veteran hot rodder and a race car builder at Kurtis Kraft, he built the first kart in Southern California in 1956. Early karting events were h ...
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Fifth Gear
''Fifth Gear'' is a British motoring television magazine series on Discovery+. It is a continuation of the ''Fifth Gear'' format originally broadcast on Channel 5 from 2002 to 2011, afterwards moving to Discovery Channel in 2012, and then in 2015 to History. Since its return in 2018, it has been broadcast on free-to-air channel Quest. The show is currently presented by Vicki Butler-Henderson, Rory Reid, Karun Chandhok and Jason Plato with Grace Webb and engineer Jimmy de Ville also involved in reports. Its former presenters include Jonny Smith, former racing driver Tiff Needell and Car SOS host Tim Shaw. It was relaunched as an electric cars format in 2021 as ''Fifth Gear Recharged''. ''Fifth Gear'' was first broadcast on 8 April 2002 as ''5th Gear'', and as a continuation of the original incarnation of the BBC show ''Top Gear'', which was cancelled in 2001. ''Top Gear'' was relaunched later that year; Channel 5 originally wanted to carry on using the ''Top Gear'' name, bu ...
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