🇹🇭 Koji Yamanishi

Koji Yamanishi is a semi-professional racing driver with a Racer Rating of 3,785, placing him in the semi-professional band where most paid drivers outside the top championships compete. His career spanned 22 years from 1996 to 2018 across 48 starts, though the vast majority of his racing came in Super GT, where he competed in 45 races across eleven seasons without recording a win or podium finish. He began with three entries in Formula 3 Macau in 1996 but never progressed beyond regional single-seater racing to establish himself at that level. His average finishing position of P23.5 across all starts reflects the nature of his career: present but consistently outside the points.[1]

Yamanishi spent most of his professional years at Team JLOC in Super GT, a programme that never achieved race wins during his tenure despite fielding drivers including Kazuki Hiramine, who rates significantly higher in career strength. Against the regular rivals he encountered in the series, the pattern was one-sided. He finished behind Hiroyaki Ishiura in 43 of their 44 shared races, behind Ronnie Quintarelli (a three-time Super GT champion) in 40 of 43 races, and behind Yuji Tachikawa (twice Super GT champion) in 42 of 43 races. His head-to-head records against Nobuteru Taniguchi, Tatsuya Kataoka and Takashi Kogure, all established professionals in their own right, show similar deficits. He did occasionally beat elite drivers; he finished ahead of Sho Tsuboi, Naoki Yamamoto and Kenta Yamashita, all of them Platinum-graded champions, once each, but these isolated results against much stronger competition cannot be read as competitive patterns. Yamanishi retired in 2018, his final appearance a 33rd-place finish in Super GT.