Well Leungbok uses Harimau a lot and seems to set good TT and SL times.

As for getting bashed about or bashing somebody else about while racing.
I think you can boil down what your likelihood of success will be to two things,first being what view you race in and the second being what steering method you use.

3rd person far view with A/Stick would have the best success,you can see all craft around you far better and you have finer control over the steering.

Which explains why me, with 1st person cockpit view and D-Pad are inevitably going to get shoved back through the pack during the course of a race