Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough explained that the necessity to practice pit stops led to using the scrubbed tire tactics.
Aston Martin was spotted having no fresh Medium or Hard tires for races on numerous occasions this year. It was a result of the drivers scrubbing tires during practice sessions for one lap.
It caused suggestions that Aston Martin believed that this approach would help make the tires more durable. However, McCullough denied it.
“At the start of the year, we were really struggling with pit stops: we were the eighth, ninth, or 10th best team at pit stops. And you can’t really race strategically with poor and inconsistent pit stops,” he said.
“We found that in practice we weren’t too bad. But, as the cars are rolling into the box, especially in a stack situation, we struggled for various reasons. So we started off by just saying, ‘Well, if we can do live pit stop practice during a race weekend, it helps. So how many can we do?’
“Often we do it on tires that we don’t even use in the race. So it’s just to give the pit stop practice a go. That is the main reason for doing it.”
