Are Red Bull and Ferrari on back foot for potential F1 Japanese GP tyre wrecker?

The iconic figure-of-eight track has always been punishing on its rubber, but things could well be a bit more extreme this time around.

Race day is expected to be another scorcher, and complaints that George Russell mentioned on Friday about a “strange” sliding have been caused by a track surface that has had a 15% drop in macro roughness (so effective grip) compared to 12 months ago.

As Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said: “Especially with the very…