You're not wrong, but it should be noted that 'at worst 1 second slower' means a lot more when the fastest time is under 2 seconds. Saving 1 second is kind of a big deal when you only have 3 to work with. Closing that much of a gap would be a huge win for Firefox.

Also worth noting that many of the linked tests are also not directly based on time, and the difference in benchmarking is still fairly substantial. With the exception of the singular test that it came out on top on, the best case among these benchmarks is that firefox mobile is 15-20% slower than Chrome. These benchmarks even include Mozilla's own Kraken benchmark (where it still comes in last among these results).

Lastly, do want to say that I hope mobile firefox can catch up on these, but they've got a lot of work to do and the odds are stacked against them.

Like, Firefox really isn't noticeably slower than other browsers in the vast majority of situations.

I imagine there is a bigger difference on older phones though. An imperceptable difference could easily become unbearable when the phone is a little outdated. I experience it at work using a slightly older PC on Windows 10.