That might well be the case but no broker, which is the first point of contact from the perspective of retail clients, just forwards the FIX message if it comes from clients. It usually is newly constructed to fit the specific requirements of the agreed protocol of the execution venues
engines. So, if a message via API can be serialized, sent, and deserialized faster than a FIX message (and there are technologies that are faster at doing just that than even the most performant FIX engine), then an order via API can very well reach the targeted execution venue faster than a FIX message.