I learnt a rule about photographying a car, or other big objects. I don't know if it cuold have work in this case because you targeted the character in the tire.
The rule is :
If the car cannot enter in the DOF, so that a part of the car will remain blurry, you must target the first 1/3 of the car. The front of the car will remain neat, and the back wil be blurry, which is not a problem.
This can work no a building or anything huge.
That mean that you don't focus on the center of the object, but a third. the rules of thirds are frequent in photography :)