You should know that promotion to F1 is not automatic. Firstly it's GP2, not F2. F2 is something completely different. The F1 teams choose whether to take drivers from GP2 or not. Sometimes the good ones completely skip the lower formulas like Verstappen. And Haryanto has never been in the top 3 in GP2. Infact, when I used to watch GP2, he was quite crap. It was only in his last season that he won some races and came 4th. Every driver is expected to bring in sponsorship money but there is a difference between a paying driver and a pay driver. Fernando Alonso and Alex Yoong were great examples in 2001. Both bought a seat at the perennial back markers Minardi but whereas Alonso was a natural talent who wasn't given the breaks by the big teams and managed to find private backers, Yoong was just a rich boy who used his connections to get a seat. The result was Alonso would go a second or two faster a lap because the gulf in quality was so vast. Yoong left the sport a year later and Alonso became one of the greatest of all time. I don't know how Haryanto will pan out but let's not compare him to Nicki Lauda just yet.
Aguri Suzuki was probably the best Jap. Satoru Nakajima could have been a really good driver but he was unlucky to have been born too early so he didn't get to F1 'til he was nearly 40. Sato was pretty good but I think Kamui was the best after Suzuki. I'm a big fan of Kamui. I used to not like the Japanese drivers at all because usually they were an embarassment and were only there because of sponsorship from Japanese companies. A lot of really awful Japanese drivers turned out in the 90's and early 00's that should not have been in F1. Kamui was unlucky in that by the time he came along, his backers Toyota were pulling out of F1 along with the rest of corporate Japan. He was one of the rare Japanese drivers that managed to get a seat without hardly any sponsorship. He was actually the lead driver for Sauber and he was very exciting to watch. If he was around in the 90's, he would have been a top-10 star without doubt and maybe even challenged for the title at some point or atleast have driven for one of the big teams.
Kamui actually lost his seat to a pay driver in Gutierrez who was pretty awful himself.
Actually, I miss Koba. This was his last action in a goodF1 car:
Some more Koba:
My personal favourite: