Power isn’t everything in racing, by a long shot. Nor is it hardly even relevant 95% of the time on the street.
Petrol is filthy, disgusting, deadly inefficient crap that is being phased out.
Not good for humans or other living beings, nor performance nor global distribution of wealth.
Just stupid not to use alternative energy. Having been trackside every year for almost a decade as a spectator I can attest first hand why the switch to e85 in Supercar racing. Power is of course highly regulated in Series and formula racing so the point about tuning max power is moot.
Anyways the argument for power potential using different fuels in an engine with a 10:1 CR would need to go in favour of TNT or nitro, but they too are deadly and inefficient for racing.
Regarding high ethanol blends and consumption, firstly the fuel costs at least 20¢ less than crappy 95 petrol, sometimes as low as half price. So the economic argument stops there really.
However there is a lot more to it, specifically the early flex fuel tunes and driving to the attributes of increased torque vs snicking down a cog.
Likely the stock flex tune is less than ideal in that article, and driven exactly like it was on petrol.
Actual consumption difference is between 10%-20% on a factory flex fuel car, my car is tuned for ethanol and gets better consumption than petrol.
So yeah, highly cost effective. I drive 60k km a year, if there was a way to save thousands and get more performance, stay legal, run cool and not kill the tree fairies then I’d consider switching fuel. But nah, e85 makes good sense.