In 1997, he gained the second drive in the Williams-Renault BTCC team, after Frank Williams organised a test between him, Gianni Morbidelli and Jean-Christophe Boullion with the fastest getting the contract offer.

In a contentious and hard-fought season, Plato won the championship after team-mate Yvan Muller's car caught fire at the last round.

With an ambition to get into NASCAR racing, Plato moved to the British ASCAR stock car scene in 2002, finishing third in the championship for XCEL Motorsport Ford Taurus.

Despite the development work needed, the car proved to be a winner right from the start, with Plato going on to win more races than any other driver (seven in total), finishing third overall in the championship.

As a result of this, the championship rules were changed to reversing the top 10 of the race 3 grid, putting an end to this tactic, and the pace of Matt Neal's Team Dynamics Honda and Yvan Muller's Vauxhall left Plato unable to challenge for a second title in 2005.

He started race 3 from 9th (after spinning this position on the grid-reversal wheel) but fought through to take the lead from Mike Jordan, with some uncertainty over whether he had passed under a yellow flag.

The battle went to the final round, with Giovanardi winning by 3 points to take the championship, with Plato declaring that "Fabrizio beat us the right way.

Plato went into the final rounds at Brands Hatch still mathematically in with a chance of the title, but admitted that the large points difference between his and Giovanardi's made this unrealistic.

Both he and Giovanardi had poor final rounds at Brands, allowing Mat Jackson to leapfrog Plato for 2nd overall in his privateer BMW.

Plato's plans for 2009 had been affected by SEAT's shock announcement to pull their factory team out of the BTCC at the end of the 2008 season.

However, after holding talks over the off-season with West Surrey Racing and Tempus Sport, Plato decided to return to the BTCC in a privately entered RML Group Chevrolet Lacetti.

[4] He dominated the 2nd half of the season and claimed the 2010 MSA Dunlop British Touring Car Championship by winning round 29 at Brands Hatch on 10 October 2010.

Plato remained with the same team in 2011 and won the first round of the season at Brands Hatch, setting a new BTCC record of 61 victories.

On 17 February 2015, it was announced that Plato would be driving alongside Turkington, Aron Smith and Warren Scott for Team BMR during the 2015 BTCC season.

Plato often competes in historic racing and is a regular at the Goodwood Revival and Members meeting and teamed up with celebrity chef James Martin in a Ford Prefect and with Craig Davies in a Corvette Stingray for the 2012 event.

[9] Plato is a co-presenter for the Channel 5 British TV series Fifth Gear co-starring with Tiff Needell, Vicki Butler-Henderson and Jonny Smith.

The car caught fire at an estimated 250 kilometres per hour (160 mph) and Plato described his injuries as follows:[10] “The back of my neck is burnt and so are my face and hands.

[11] Plato presented the Sky One television program Mission Implausible where he and Tania Zaetta competed to perform three stunts over the course of each episode.

He runs a marketing agency, Brand Pilot Ltd.[15] On 30 March, 2021, it was confirmed that Fuelling Around, the podcast that he co-hosts with Dave Vitty, was returning for a second series.