TAKING LIBERTY

Sakura season is about reflection and new beginnings. So we celebrate it with Lando Norris and his new Liberty Walk Skyline

- ROWAN HORNCASTLE

As salarymen barge past, diving drunkenly into cupboard sized restaurants, the neon lights of Shinjuku dance in puddles beneath Lando Norris' feet. “This is the most arcade game vibe ever,” he says, voice bubbling with excited enthusiasm.

And perhaps only in Japan - land of ceremony, restraint, and polite indifference - could the most talked about man on the F1 grid saunter through a city, hood up, without a phone being shoved in his face. Well, until I whip mine out to show him a photo from the first time TopGear interviewed him, back in 2019.

“S**t, would you look at that!” he exclaims, unleashing his trademark helium giggle. Back then, he was a 19-year-old prepping to become the youngest British driver ever to start a Grand Prix. Now, 134 GPs later - with a neck like an oak trunk - he's visibly stronger, more confident, but still fantastically lucid and funny.

“Time flies and it's mad to think it's my seventh year in Formula One. It felt like not long ago I was trying to get to Formula One. Don't get me wrong, everything still feels crazy, but more normal now - like Formula One is my everyday life, rather than feeling like I've got an everyday life and then I do Formula One.”

But we're not in Japan for the F1. Quite the opposite. We're in Tokyo - 250 miles from the paddock in Suzuka - so Lando can take his new car for a midnight spin. A very much not a McLaren, 600bhp Liberty Walk R32 Nissan Skyline - Lando's first JDM car to join an evergrowing and increasingly juicy collection.

“I had the Gumball 3000 Top Trumps cards when I was a kid and always remember the Nissan Skyline. Back then, I also played Gran Turismo, and I remember racing around the streets of Japan - it just looked awesome. So I've always wanted to see what that's like in reality.”