I just made a test's online with El-habib. Phantom no weapons tournament with 6 tracks (3 easy ones : moa therma etc. & 3 tortuous ones : sol2 reverse, chengou ...). I used pilot assist (for once, i swear )and El without PA. On the easy ones, i was 3/5 seconds behind, but on the difficult sol2 reverse (i must precise i don't know this track and i hit lot of walls) i was just 1/2 seconds behind El with 2 or 3 perfect laps.
On these kind of track it's a huge help, i think.