Naoki Yamamoto: Full Biography
Naoki Yamamoto is a Japanese racing driver who has won the Super Formula championship three times, in 2013, 2018 and 2020, and the Super GT GT500 title twice, in 2018 and 2020. He has driven for Team Kunimitsu in Super GT for all but two of his seasons in the class, and retired from Super Formula at the end of 2024.
Honda He won the All-Japan Kart Championship FA class in 2002, graduated from the Suzuka Circuit Racing School with a scholarship in 2006, and joined the Honda Formula Dream Project academy the following year. He took the All-Japan Formula 3 National Class title in 2009 with eight wins in sixteen races, and has raced Honda machinery ever since.
Two Doubles His first Japanese Top Formula title, in 2013, was settled on a tiebreak at Suzuka. In 2018 he won Super Formula and then the GT500 championship alongside Jenson Button, the first driver in fourteen years to take both in one year. He repeated it in 2020, and is the only driver to have done it more than once.
Suzuka The 2018 double gave him the forty super licence points needed for Formula One, and Toro Rosso put him in the car for first practice at the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix — the first Japanese driver in an F1 session since Kamui Kobayashi in 2014. No race seat followed. He drives the No. 100 Honda for Stanley Team Kunimitsu with Tadasuke Makino.
