You shouldn't be at a significant disadvantage if you're racing HD ship against Fury ship, I know top pilots who can easily hold off everyone else in AG-Systems HD or Goteki 45 HD

Experimenting with ships is good though, and sometimes the stats really don't speak for the ship's characteristics, eg. I feel that Triakis handles much better than Pirahna or Auricom, despite having the same Handling stat, so you really have to play about a bit with ships.