I've done the same, I just got fed up with getting punctures which seem to be completely random but I didn't want to turn damage off. At least I was able to get the "second chance" trophy thanks to a puncture.Punctures are far to prevalent in this game. I just changed the replay restarts from 0 to 1 and use the one in the event of a puncture. If I get two in a race then, well I figure odds of getting two in this game are almost as close to the odds of getting one in real life so I live with it and box.
Sometimes the punctures do seem to actually have a reason behind them, I've had a few for running wide over the kerbs and such but other times it just seems like the game throws one at you when you're out front just to haul you back into the pack