The SuperSprint format has been under fire for much of the season, with Saturday’s two 60-kilometre races on the hard-compound tyre failing to throw up much exciting racing.

V8 Supercars has reacted to the criticism, first giving teams an extra set of practice tyres for Friday, and now by switching one of Saturday’s races to the softer Dunlop tyre in a bid to spice things up.

“The Commission has determined the tyre allocation for the meeting with three sets of Dunlop hard tyres and two sets of Dunlop soft compound tyres to be used in Darwin,” reported the official V8 Supercars website.

“On Saturday teams must qualify and race on the same compound. Qualifying for the first Saturday race (and that race) will utilise hard compound tyres while qualifying for the second Saturday race (and that race) will use soft compound tyres.

“The Sunday race remains unchanged although teams can carry through hard tyres from Saturday. They are not permitted to use the Saturday soft tyre on Sunday.”