Apparently not. It's been noted that GT5 calculates tire deterioration more by how much tires slip, not so much by how resilient the compound is. Since hard compound tires slip way more than softs they deplete at the same rate, in some cases even faster than softs, and it seems to me the lack of grip is magnified by deterioration much more in hard compounds as well (i.e a racing hard tire at 40% depletion gets the same results as a racing soft at 70% deterioration)
I'm 5 hours into the 24 at Le Mans and I tried some stints with mediums and the rear tires in particular get destroyed quickly, and the last lap before I had to pit was torture, whereas racing softs kept a longer life span by about a lap and half and the back end didn't slip as easily.
Same applies to intermediates and rain tires. Intermediates last longer 'cause they slip less/grip more than rain tires, even at 100% track water. Speaking of which I hope I don't have to race the rest of the 24 in the downpour that's been coming down for 3 hours now...
