Or, OR! It could have been a case of he was too surprised by Shinn's fury to do much else. But then, to you, Kira > Shinn in terms of piloting abilities, so that can't be it. Nope, gotta over-analyze and over-rationalize everything to make it so that Kira didn't look like he was beaten so badly as he looked like he was.

Kira was in a life or death situation. He made the choice that would have the best chance of him surviving an unavoidable attack like that, pure and simple. It was a combat decision. That's it. Nothing more to see here.