In some turns (T13 in Shanghai, T6/T7 at Interlagos) you can really hurt you front tires when understeering because of the speed. In those turns you really need to avoid understeering as much as possible, and for that a technique is to open the wheel a little (ie reduce wheel angle) when you feel the understeering, and then, once you find the grip again (the wheel FFB becomes harder), you can increase the wheel angle a little without loosing the grip.
There are other sources of tire degradation (wheel spin, wheel blocking under braking, and slides) but those are easy to avoid.