You know how actors will often say they’re fed up playing nice guys – that it’s way more fun to be a right git instead? It’s a bit like that with motoring journalists. Well, it is for me at least. I may come across as an affable chap, but I’m basically a seething mass of resentment like the next man. Yet I’ve had to bottle it up, thanks to testing a string of pretty good cars recently. Still, I am fed up with dolling out praise. I fancy donning my metaphorical hobnail boots and giving something a damn good kicking – if only just to feel alive again.
And hurrah! This new Maserati GT2 Stradale seems like just the ticket. It’s surely the perfect vehicle for unlocking my curmudgeonly side and allowing my inner B.I.T.C.H. to burst forth. The opportunity it presents is like Satan himself landing on my shoulder, handing me a can of whoop-ass in one hand and a tin opener in the other, and whispering “Fill ya boots, son.” If you, too, are fed up with reading gushing car reviews and fancy a blood-curdling word-whirlwind, buckle up. You might enjoy this one.
Why? Well, firstly it’s a Maserati review, and I haven’t driven a Maserati that I’ve liked in at least two decades. That’s no exaggeration, either. The last time a Massa made me all mushy would’ve been the Quattroporte or GranSport of the early ‘00s. Everything since has been at best mediocre, and at worst, miserable.
That said, I hear the MC20 is good but I’ve never driven the standard car. I was scheduled to drive one a couple of years back but that never happened, which is another story. Nevertheless, regardless of how good the standard car is, it’s already pricey at £227,660. The fact that MC20s with around 3,000 miles on the clock are available in the PH classifieds for less than £140,000, indicates that the market feels the MC20’s list price is a tad steep, too.
And this, more-focused model costs even more. It’s £273,510, which, on the face of it, is just bonkers. That’s over £30,000 more than the more powerful, hybrid Ferrari 296 GTB. I think the Maserati camp of Modenese car makers needs a reality check. And to justify that crazy sum, the press kit is brimming with how the GT2 Stradale replicates the MC20 GT2 racecar, with the take-home appearing to be they’ve ruined what is great about the standard car: its virtuosity as a supple and useable supercar for the road. The GT2 Stradale, meanwhile, sounds like just another harsh, unforgiving track car that very few people will ever drive on a track. There’s even going to be a lightweight titanium exhaust, which is so loud it’s not homologated for the road. I mean, really?
Moving on to my next gripe, I’ve never liked the Ascari circuit in Spain. Sure, it’s got some great corners. They were designed to replicate the best corners from the best circuits in the world, after all. Trouble is, it replicates pre-war motor racing track safety standards, too. Many of the great corners eschew runoff and TECPRO for trees. Yes, trees, and bloody big ones, too. Now, call me a snowflake but if I’m ragging an unfamiliar supercar around a track to test its limits, trees delineating the Tarmac wouldn’t be my first choice. Poor Jimmy Clark tragically taught me that lesson. And guess where Maserati launched the GT2 Stradale? Yep, at Ascari. That’s another nail fired into its coffin as far as I’m concerned.
Let’s park the negativity just for a moment, though, so I can feign neutrality and explain more about the GT2 Stradale concept. As I said, it’s based around the MC20 GT2 racecar and, to be fair, that’s had a degree of success. Last year it took 16 pole positions, 12 wins and finished first in the Fanatec GT2 European Series championship. Credit where it’s due, that’s a decent motorsport CV. And when you see the GT2 and the GT2 Stradale side by side, they do look like peas from the same pod.
The road car isn’t quite as aggressive, but, compared with the standard MC20, the GT2 Stradale is much more butch. That’s thanks to its bigger front splitter, larger front radiator inlets, with the central radiator venting through a Porsche 911 GT3 RS-style slatted bonnet. Like the GT3 RS that means there’s no luggage space up front, but the GT2 Stradale still has a healthy trunk behind the engine. The rear haunches feature bigger ducts to feed the air-to-air intercoolers, and the rear wings themselves are new. At the back is a large, swan-neck rear wing, which is manually adjustable with three settings. The underfloor is also heavily revised, with additional strakes to help funnel air out of the enlarged rear diffuser. As the Maserati engineers said, aero performance and thermal management were high up on their list of priorities for this car.
By all accounts, their work had quite an impact. The brakes are twice as good at removing heat to ensure their longevity on track, and there’s been a dramatic jump up in downforce. The standard MC20 generates 145kg of the stuff at 174mph; at the same speed the GT2 Stradale delivers 500kg, split 130kg at the front and 370kg rear. That’s a lot. Antonio Esposito, the chief engineer, told me that so much detailed aerodynamic work has been done that even without the splitter, under-floor strakes and rear wing, the GT2 Stradale still produces up to 280kg of downforce.
It’s lighter, but not by a vast amount. No doubt it’s quite tricky to strip weight out of a car that already has a carbon tub, beyond the obvious things, like removing the carpets, which they’ve done. But they’ve gone through everything with the finest toothed comb to whittle away more weight. The new centre console, for example, is 1.5kg lighter, and the new bucket seats, developed by Sabat, save a further 20kg. The seats are part of the optional Performance Pack (£13,050), and with it, the GT2 Stradale is, potentially, up to 60kg lighter than the standard MC20. I say potentially, because my understanding is the full gain requires you to fit the illegal exhaust, which saves 7kg over the standard system.
For the record, the Performance Pack also adds semi-slick Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, an electronic differential, racing carbon ceramic brakes, and a GT2 Corsa Evo drive mode – allowing you to fine-tune the ABS, traction control, stability control and e-diff locking, just like GT2 racecar drivers are able to do. There’s also a Performance Plus pack (£14,200) that adds a fire extinguisher and harnesses into the mix. Either way, it makes this already expensive car even more expensive.
Inside the GT2 Stradale feels spartan. Without carpets, you’re left with a bare carbon fibre floor, and all that’s not carbon is Alcantara, which is used liberally to reduce glare. There’s evidence of more attention to detail here, too, because the centre console has been raised 50mm to move it closer to the driver, allowing easier changes using the rotary drive-mode controller.
Much of the hardware is the same, though. The GT2 Stradale keeps the same dampers as the MC20, although the spring rates are 10 per cent stiffer. The gearbox is the same Tremec, eight-speed, dual-clutch ‘box, but the shift speeds in Sport and Corsa modes are 0.2 seconds quicker than they are in the regular MC20. And the 3.0-litre, twin-turbo V6 is the same, too, just with more power. Not a lot more, mind. A mere 10hp extra, which is the sort of uplift in poke you might expect from a tame, special-edition Golf GTI rather than a race-bred, street-legal supercar. Still, it means a peak 640hp at 7,500rpm, which makes the GT2 Stradale the most powerful road-going Maserati yet. Peak torque is slightly lower, though, at 531lb ft from 3,000rpm. In all, the GT2 Stradale is capable of 0-62mph in 2.8 seconds (one-tenth quicker than standard) and 201mph (1mph slower, thanks to the extra drag).
Right then, with the technical highlights dealt with, let’s get back to the negativity. This is the bit I’ve been looking forward to: getting stuck into how they’ve ruined the looks of what was, undeniably, a rather graceful car, and made the GT2 Stradale needlessly harsh and uncomfortable on the road. Except, rather disappointingly, neither is true.
Firstly, the looks. Whatever you think about it in the pictures, I can assure you that in the flesh the GT2 Stradale is still a decidedly handsome car. If anything, it makes the standard MC20 look a little meek. The GT2 Stradale has all the same svelte swoops and cute creases, with the extra adornments adding a bit more zing. Think of the standard MC20 as David Beckham in his early, clean-shaven days; the GT2 Stradale is Beckham à la tattoos and stubble: still handsome, but more characterful.
Importantly, though, the GT2 Stradale’s look isn’t over the top. It’s not a 911 GT3 RS, in other words. Now, that particular Porsche is a car I love dearly, but even I’ll admit to feeling a bit of a plum while driving one on the road. It’s the kind of car that, when you clamber out at a busy petrol station forecourt, you feel people looking at you, and not with admiration. You sense they’re looking at you because they believe you are a prat, mainly because it has a 747’s wing mounted on the back. You don’t feel that way getting out of a GT2 Stradale because it looks Italian and exotic.
On the inside, it treads the line perfectly between stripped out and bare. It feels special despite the lack of carpets, and I welcome the cabin’s simplicity in other respects – in fact, I wish a few of its rivals would take note. Yes, there’s an infotainment touchscreen, but it doesn’t dominate. Equally, the digital instrumentation is clear and simple to understand. All the other controls are humble press buttons, including the ones on the steering wheel. Calling all Ferrari 296 GTB owners: are you still struggling with those silly steering wheel touchpads? Then get this: the buttons on the Maserati’s steering wheel do one thing and, when you press them, they work. I know, amazing, right? The big, round, mode button on the centre console is a little more complicated but even that’s not rocket science. You change the driving modes by turning it left or right, and swipe the face to reveal the damper settings, which, in every drive mode, you make stiffer or harder as is your want. That’s really as complicated as it gets.
I do have a few grumbles about the interior. The bucket seats, for example. Somehow, Porsche’s buckets seem to fit everyone perfectly, no matter their size and shape. The GT2 Stradale’s don’t – or at least not me. The lumbar support is too high and presses into the middle of my back, while the shoulder supports are too low and pointy, so they pinch. If you’re 5’4”, 60kg and a racing driver you’ll probably be fine, but I’m 6' 3”, 100kg and not a racing driver, and I never felt truly at ease in them. I tried the standard seats and they’re better, by the way, but don’t look half as good and jar with the rest of the motorsport feel. By removing the carpets, they’ve also been able to drop the seat height by a small amount, but I still feel like I’m sitting too high up for a supercar. Lastly, the A-pillars block my view through certain corners.
On to the driving, then, and we began with a road route from Marbella along the Puerto del Madroño – a mountain pass linking the Costa del Sol to Ronda that climbs up to 1,065m – en route to the Ascari circuit. It’s a proper bit of road, but we weren’t let loose on it. Oddly, Maserati didn’t trust a group of UK journalists, who included some well-known and respectable names such as Catchpole and Prior, to make the trip alone. We had to follow a lead driver. It was all a bit prescriptive without the freedom to really push the car. But, you know what? It turns out this race-car-for-the-road has a quality that’s rarer than a tin of tartan paint: it’s actually pleasing to stroke along at seven-tenths. Having driven these roads in the McLaren Artura, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this much fun, and I was without a chaperone on that occasion.
Why is that? I’m never entirely sure what elicits this sense of under-the-limit joy, to be honest. I think it has something to do with noise and the way a car develops speed. The McLaren, for instance, has a V6 that sounds like a bag of nails, so there’s no pleasure in listening to it play out. And because it’s the new breed of hybridised supercar, there are no holes in its performance curve. You get about one second to use the throttle before you’re doing a billion miles an hour. If that sounds like fun, it isn’t. Not if you fear the clink.
The GT2 Stradale, on the other hand, has a much nicer-sounding engine. Sure, it’s no V12 or flat-plane V8 but, to my ears, it’s the most charismatic of all the V6 supercars – 296 GTB included. It sucks and snorts and wheezes away as the boost rises and falls – like it’s desperate to involve you in its work. And, where the Artura’s Ricardo-built V6 has you clambering for things to shove in your ears – fingers, weeds, mud – to stop the aural torture, the GT2 Stadale’s V6 is guttural, but with a sweet, mechanical resonance nonetheless. It’s a delight by comparison.
And because there’s lag – yes, lovely, imperfect lag – below 2,500rpm, you can play with the throttle a bit and enjoy this full-on supercar a little more on public roads. All without fear of winding up in some sweaty, Spanish jail, being ogled by a large, moustachioed man. Obviously, you can’t be silly. Pin the throttle and keep it there and it’s properly quick. When the boost arrives fully at 3,000rpm you’re still slapped back in the seat, heading for the hills at an incendiary velocity, with the Nettuno V6 chasing its scintillating 8,000rpm limiter with real vim.
At the same time, my fears about harshness weren’t born out. In GT mode, the GT2 Stradale can be calm and soothing, the engine tractable and the gearbox slipping effortlessly from one ratio to the next. Then there’s the ride, which I’d class as superb. With the dampers at their softest, the suspension is forgiving, easing you over the road with the benevolence of Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: supercars with wheel travel that can be measured in millimetres that ride like this astound me. It’s witchcraft, but not the kind that makes me want to set fire to someone or dunk them in a river. It makes me want to genuflect at the engineers’ feet with my admiration of their skills. True, there are times when the body control is a little too pliable. For example, I felt the back rise up excessively over a sizeable crest, mid-way round a fast, sweeping left corner, but that’s trimmed away in Sport. Sport seemed like the perfect compromise, actually: locked down but still supple enough for these Spanish roads. Even Corsa isn’t harsh. You just get more secondary fidget as the suspension picks up on any slight ripples in the road.
The GT2 Stradale’s steering is another win. Indeed, it has one of the nicest steering setups I’ve driven. Forget this nonsense about McLaren’s hydraulic racks being the messiah. They really aren’t. EPAS done properly is, objectively, better than hydraulics. That’s just a fact. Why? Because engineers can filter out the bad stuff, like pronounced kick back, while allowing all the good feedback to flood through. I’m sick of reading about how marvellous McLaren’s steering is when many of its cars will have your thumbs off over a sharp ridge in the road.
There’s no kickback in the GT2 Stradale’s steering. Just a light pulse when you hit a bump or cat’s eye, accompanied by delicate vibrations telling you about any surface changes. It’s not hyperactive, either, like the 296 GTB’s helm. The gearing is spot on, actually, and while, for my liking, the weighting is on the lighter side, it’s not too light. Sure, I prefer the extra heft of the 911 GT3 RS’s set-up, which has probably the best steering of any car I’ve tried in the last few years, but the GT2 Stradales’s steering still feels connected around the straight ahead and weights up a progressively as you wind the lock on.
All the above remains true on the track, too. Ahh yes, the Ascari track – God love it, with all its Russian roulette oaks and ashes. Well, here’s the next surprise. Last time I was here was with the Artura and I didn’t enjoy it much. This time I did. It turns out I’m not as scared of trees as I thought I was. Was that my now-greater familiarity with the circuit? I doubt it. I have a memory like a sieve, so the chances of me remembering my way around Ascari’s 26 twists and turns any better after a several-year hiatus seemed slim. So could it be that the GT2 Stradale is simply a friendlier companion than the Artura? Yes, I think that’s it.
Again, the steering tells you all you need to know. When the front does start to push, you know what’s happening from the drop in resistance through the wheel. And, despite the steering being less hyper than some, the GT2 Stradale still flicks deftly through sections that require a quick change of direction – like the esses of Pif-Paf and Rafael. Equally, through the high-speed sections, it’s composed and confidence-inspiring. Even with the reins of the traction control loosened a little in Corsa mode, this mid-engined, 640hp, twin-turbocharged, road-legal race car felt docile. Albeit with the gearbox now producing much quicker changes, adding short, sharp, thumps in the back to add to the engine’s prolonged compression of your spine into the seat. And yet, despite doing a darn fine impression of the racecar it’s based on, it felt on my side; any slides from the rear being easily caught. You know what else? It’s fun, and I couldn’t help loving it for that.
You can even take liberties, like trail-braking hard into hairpins. When you do, you feel the front load up and bite, almost mandating the nose to hit the apex, and all without any sense of squeaky bum, mid-engined pendulousness at the rear. That said, the brakes are one thing that could be improved. They’re fine on the road and ultimately strong on track, but lack that last tenth of linearity and reassuring solidity through the pedal. Again, I have to reference the GT3 RS here. If Maserati could match the Porsche’s brakes, what’s already a compelling package would move to a nigh-on perfect one. And while I’m on the subject of brakes, in left-hand drive guise the pedal box is too far to the right for my liking, leaving me a bit askew for relaxed left-foot braking.
Those are the only real criticisms I have, though, which obviously leaves me rather frustrated; once again, unable to vent my spleen and instead pouring positivity onto the page. How very dull, which, ironically, is quite unlike the GT2 Stradale. On road or track, it seems to be quite brilliant. There’s a caveat to all my praise, though. I’ve driven only cars that were fitted with the Performance Pack, which means the sticky, semi-slicks and tricky e-diff could be masking many flaws. Perhaps, without those trinkets, the GT2 Stradale will turn out to be the dud I’d hoped, so I can play the villain after all. I doubt it, though. There’s something inherently right about this car that only deliberate skulduggery could dull.
If I have one fear for this car, it’s the market. If the GT2 Stradale had a prancing horse on the front, instead of a trident, I reckon the queue would stretch from Modena to Turin. But it hasn’t, so I doubt it will, which is a shame. That said, they’re only making 914 of them, each with a plaque that says ‘1 of 914’. The intention there is to hint at the year Maserati was born, 1914, and enthuse its latest supercar with the heritage of its past. Corny? A little. But at least this time it’s a car worthy of that heritage.
It may not be as fast as a 296 GTB or have an electric-only range like the Artura, but I couldn’t give a monkey’s chuff. All I know is I’d have a GT2 Stradale over either of those two any day. Why? Because I didn’t come away from driving those rivals with a sense of longing – at best, a sense of respect and, in the McLaren’s case, I’m not sure I’d go that far. But the MC20 GT2 Stradale left me respecting, smiling and desiring. In other words: I want one. That means it joins my elite list of truly wonderful supercars from recent times, including the Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae, Huracán Performante and 992 GT3 RS. Technically, all are flawed; none being the fastest or most cutting-edge of their ilk. But, as they all prove, the MC20 GT2 Stradale included, when it comes to modern supercars, less is, indeed, more.
Specification | Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale
Engine: 2992cc V6, twin-turbocharged
Transmission: Eight-speed, twin-clutch, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 640 @ 7,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 531 @ 3,000-5,000rpm
0-60mph: 2.8 sec
Top speed: 201mph
Weight: 1,365kg (dry)
MPG: TBC
CO2: TBC
Price: £273,510
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