Naoki Yamamoto (racing driver)

 is a Japanese racing driver. He is currently driving in the Super GT and Super Formula championships. He won the Super Formula championship in 2013, 2018, and 2020, along with the Super GT championship in 2018 and 2020. In 2018, he became the first driver to win both the Super Formula and Super GT titles in the same year for 14 years; he accomplished this feat for a second time in 2020. His successes in both series has allowed him to reach the 40-point threshold required for an F1 superlicence. 
Career.
Early career.
Yamamoto started karting in 1994. In 2006, he graduated from the Suzuka Circuit Racing School in the advanced formula class, becoming a member of the Honda Formula Dream Project. In 2007 he raced in Formula Challenge Japan and finished second in the championship. He moved to the Japanese Formula 3 Championship in 2008, finishing fifth in the championship class with one win. In 2009 he took eight wins in the national class and won the championship.
Super GT.
Yamamoto debuted in the Super GT Series in 2010, driving a Honda HSV-010 GT for Team Kunimitsu. He scored a podium on his debut at Suzuka, and took another third place at the Suzuka endurance round. During the following two seasons he scored three more podiums and was fifth in the drivers' standings in 2012, the best result for a Honda driver that season.
In 2013 Yamamoto switched to the Dome Racing team, and took his first Super GT victory at the Suzuka 1000km endurance race. In 2014 he won at Fuji to take the first win for the new Honda NSX Concept-GT car, and finished fourth in the championship for the second time in a row.
Yamamoto returned to Team Kunimitsu in 2015. He won at Sugo that season to finish third in the championship, and scored three podiums across the next two seasons. In 2018 he finished second at Okayama and Suzuka, won at Sugo and finished third at Motegi to win the championship. It was the first title for Team Kunimitsu, and having won Super Formula earlier that year made Yamamoto the first driver to win both titles in the same year for 14 years.
After finishing eighth in 2019 with two podiums, Yamamoto scored seven top-six finishes in eight races in 2020 – including three podiums and a win at Fuji – to win the championship for the second time.
Super Formula.
Yamamoto entered the Super Formula Championship (then known as Formula Nippon) in 2010 to drive a Honda-powered car for Nakajima Racing. He scored seven top-seven finishes in the eight races of 2010, finishing seventh in the standings in his first year. He moved to Team Mugen in 2011 and took pole position at Suzuka in his first race with the team, but did not finish after being involved in a first lap incident. The 2013 season saw him score five podiums and a victory, which clinched him the championship.
After the introduction of new regulations in 2014, Yamamoto took five pole positions, four podiums and two wins across 2014–2017, and was the leading Honda driver in the standings in 2014 and 2015. He won his second championship in 2018 after winning three times. He switched teams to Dandelion Racing for 2019 and took three podiums and a win in the first three races of the season to finish runner-up in the championship. He won the championship for the third time in 2020, becoming the first driver ever to win both of Japan's top racing categories in the same year multiple times.
Formula One.
He drove for Toro Rosso-Honda in the first practice session of the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix, completing the most laps in the session and setting a fastest lap time just 0.1s off his more experienced teammate's fastest time. The participation made him the first Japanese Formula One driver to drive a Formula One car since Kamui Kobayashi.
Racing record.
Complete Formula Nippon/Super Formula results.
‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed.