Liberty Walk has gone to work on Andretti’s Formula E cars

Liberty Walk isn’t a company afraid of ruffling a few feathers. Over the years, legendary tuner Wataru Kato has controversially angle-ground, riveted and body-kitted his way through everything from Ferrari F40s to Lamborghini Miuras, and even Nissan Skylines for Lando Norris. But now he’s entering new territory, and possibly his most controversial one yet: Formula E.

This weekend, for the Tokyo E-Prix, Andretti will race two Liberty Walk-liveried Formula E cars because apparently a pair of night races in Japan was in danger of being too restrained. So who do you call to spice things up? Kato-san.

Now, Formula E’s technical regulations are less enthusiastic about wheelarches with their own weather systems and camber you can cut cheese with, so founder Wataru Kato has had to make do with wrapping the cars instead.

The Liberty Walk design is taken from an R34 GT-R and has a not so-subtle hint of Fast and Furious to it (it's chrome-and-blue), Japanese lettering and enough branding to frighten a tasteful person at 50 paces. It has been slathered onto British FE champion Jake Dennis’s and FE newbie Felipe Drugovich’s Andretti Porsche 99X Electric GEN3 Evo race cars for the double-header around Tokyo’s neon-lit bay.

The chrome finish has been designed to flare beneath the floodlights at Tokyo Big Sight, where Formula E will stage its first Japanese night-race.

This collaboration arrives at a useful moment for Formula E. Its forthcoming GEN4 car had an unusually public weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where Dan Ticktum finished second in the Timed Shootout with a 42.46-second run and thrust Formula E further into the mainstream.

The GEN4 car, coming later this year for the 2026/27 season, is 50 per cent more powerful than the GEN3 Evo in race trim, producing 450kW – around 603bhp. Attack Mode increases that to 600kW, or roughly 804bhp, which is 71 per cent more than the current car can produce. As was proven at Goodwood, it's proper fast given it missed victory by less than half a second and recorded the fifth-fastest shootout time in Goodwood history. Better than that, it now looks like an actual race car, which is a huge win.

The second to last outing for the current generation of cars will potentially be just as interesting as the championship is unusually undecided at this stage. Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein leads on 141 points, but Mitch Evans is only nine behind for Jaguar. Oliver Rowland sits third on 114, followed by António Félix da Costa on 111, Jake Dennis on 109 and Edoardo Mortara on 103.

Which means the top six are covered by just 38 points, with 58 available across Tokyo’s two races alone. One bad qualifying session, one concrete-wall interface or one badly timed Attack Mode could turn the table upside down before everyone reaches London. Who's your money on?