Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer says its display in France should silence any critics who suggested it was breaching tyre pressure guidelines.
Aston Martin was one of two teams, along with Red Bull, to suffer tyre failures in Azerbaijan, with Pirelli’s investigation absolving them of breaching regulations.
The company nonetheless suggested that running conditions of the tyres had differed compared to what it had expected.
A new technical directive was issued to teams ahead of the French Grand Prix, with pressures raised, while more stringent checks were introduced.
Aston Martin secured only its second double top 10 finish of the campaign at Paul Ricard as Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll rounded out the points-paying positions.
It came after the pair both went long on Hard tyres before switching to Mediums for the second stint of the race.
“We did long stints and I hope that silences the critics that say we’re doing something untoward with the tyres – we don’t, we never have, we never will, we just have a good understanding as to what to do and we’ve showed it again,” outlined Szafnauer.
“There’s new technical directives that came out, higher pressures, we’ve followed all that, and still did a good job on the tyres.
“We have to maybe look at some of our competitors who went a bit backwards to see actually what they were doing.”
Szafnauer praised both Vettel and Stroll for the gains made during the race.
“From where we started I think we made the most of it,” he said. “Lance, beautiful drive from 19th, in the points, and Seb finishing ninth from where he started with real pace, strategy, overtaking – brilliant.
“We didn’t really benefit from people falling off in front of us, we had to do it the hard way.”
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