It's not actually that bad, direct injection goes a long way to helping solve pre-ignition issues on turbo engines because of the cooling effect of the misting of the fuel. High performance engines will pull timing a lot, but those usually recommend premium to start with. My Taos has a 1.5T and when I watch the timing it doesn't really retard much if at all even when hot and towing on an uphill, using regular gas.
Maybe it's not advancing as much as it could either?