He did not enjoy a particularly successful start to his career, however, with a mechanical failure and a stalled engine restricting him to a total of one lap in his first two races.

At the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, Yamamoto had a major effect on the championship after suffering a tyre delamination during qualifying, which consigned him to last place on the grid.

Later on in the session, Fernando Alonso punctured a tyre on debris from this incident, an occurrence which would eventually result in the points leader being penalised for blocking Felipe Massa and dropping from fifth to tenth on the grid.

However, Heidfeld had mistaken Yamamoto for Sato, the driver who caused the incident, and apologised for his mistake before the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix.

Yamamoto made his return to the GP2 series halfway through the 2008 season, as the ART Grand Prix team elected to employ him in place of the underperforming Luca Filippi.

Yamamoto kept his seat at ART for the 2008–09 GP2 Asia Series where he was looking to emulate the success of Grosjean, who won the inaugural championship with the team.

However, he was somewhat overshadowed by team-mates Nico Hülkenberg and Pastor Maldonado, but managed to finish 9th in the championship, with a podium at the opening race in Shanghai.

On 8 July 2010 HRT team principal Colin Kolles announced that Yamamoto was to replace Bruno Senna for the British Grand Prix,[8] where he qualified 24th and last, he went on to finish 20th and last, just behind his team-mate Karun Chandhok.

His rear wing struck the mechanic resulting in him being taken to hospital where he stayed for 10 days before being discharged and returning home to Germany.

[11] He was replaced at the Singapore Grand Prix by test driver Christian Klien after reportedly suffering food poisoning.

He failed to set a time in qualifying after the tricky rain conditions caused him to hit the wall and then also retired from the race after running into the back of Jarno Trulli.

Yamamoto entered the last round of the 2020 Super Formula Lights at Fuji for B-Max, scoring a best finish of 7th in the third race.