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Japan’s Sakon Yamamoto was handed his second Formula One race seat midway through the 2007 season after Spyker drafted him in to replace Christijan Albers. The opportunity came 12 months after he stepped into Franck Montagny’s slot at Super Aguri for the last seven rounds of 2006, only to lose the seat to former Honda tester Anthony Davidson.

Japan’s Sakon Yamamoto was handed his second Formula One race seat midway through the 2007 season after Spyker drafted him in to replace Christijan Albers. The opportunity came 12 months after he stepped into Franck Montagny’s slot at Super Aguri for the last seven rounds of 2006, only to lose the seat to former Honda tester Anthony Davidson.

Yamamoto’s racing career began when he was barely into his teens, when he joined the Suzuka Kart Racing School. By 1997 he was winning local competitions and in 1999 became Japanese champion. After a spell with the Suzuka Formula Racing School, he graduated to single-seaters in 2001 and scored almost instant success in Japanese Formula Three, securing five podium results and fourth place overall in his debut season.

In 2002 Yamamoto headed to Europe and German F3. After a difficult start to the season with the GM Motorsport team he switched Team Kolles, run by Colin Kolles, who would also later be his boss at Spyker. However, the switch did little to improve Yamamoto’s fortunes and he moved to the F3 Euroseries the following year. Failing to find success there either, he headed back to Japan for 2004.

On home soil, things began to improve and he finished seventh overall in the Japanese F3 series, with a win at the final round at Motegi. His 2005 Formula Nippon campaign was slightly less fruitful, but by then Yamamoto was also focusing on Formula One. He made his test debut with Jordan at Silverstone in September and went on to appear as the team’s third driver at the Japanese Grand Prix.

He began 2006 competing in both Formula Nippon and Japan’s Super GT series, before getting a Formula One call-up from Super Aguri. He became the fledgling team’s third driver from June’s British Grand Prix and impressed enough to be handed a race seat from July’s German round onwards.

His race debut lasted less than two laps thanks to a broken driveshaft and he would retire from the next three races too. He finally scored his first Formula One finish with 16th place in Shanghai, a result he would match at the final round in Brazil. He stayed on as a Super Aguri tester for 2007, after missing out on a race drive, and also competed in GP2 until winning his Spyker deal in late July.