No. Air is a fluid. Like all fluids, it exerts pressure equally in all directions. A pneumatic tire is not simply a shock absorber, nor does it need to defor

No. Air is a fluid. Like all fluids, it exerts pressure equally in all directions. A pneumatic tire is not simply a shock absorber, nor does it need to deform for its internal pressure to change the ground pressure. It is transferring force to the entire tire that would be transferred to the ground if you used a solid wheel to contact the ground. You are applying X pounds of force to Y volume of air, which is distributing that force across the entire internal surface area of the tire. It is not the contact area of the tire to the ground that has force exerted on it, it is the surface area of the interior of the tire. This is not hypothetical, measure the ground pressure, change the tire pressure and measure again. It is trivial to verify for yourself.