2025 Maserati GT2 Stradale delivers speed with ease

• Maserati gave the GT2 Stradale lots of the GT2 race car’s visual DNA

• The GT2 Stradale is less tunable than a 911 GT3 RS and quieter than an Artura

• The GT2 Stradale arrives in the U.S. in August and costs $311,995

Maserati’s going back to its racing roots. Or at least it’s trying. 

The storied Italian automaker out of Modena returned to racing in 2023 with the MC20-based GT2. Now, thanks to that car we get this car: the 2025 Maserati GT2 Stradale.

When the race car’s road-going spawn arrives in the U.S. in August it’ll look the part, but it lacks Italian emotion.

Maserati brought me to Marbella, Spain and the Ascari race track and surrounding roads for an all-too-brief encounter with the GT2 Stradale to see the fruits of the Tridente’s labor in its latest effort to rekindle that competitive racer spirit. Spoiler: It’s a mixed bag, depending on what you desire.

The GT2 Stradale feels neutral and shifts hit with authority

On my second lap of the Ascari circuit, which Maserati let us run in its full 3.37-mile configuration, the rear end of the GT2 kicked out as I trail braked into turn 3, countersteered a little and eased into the throttle. As I muttered about how the chassis was so neutral, my Master Maserati driving instructor and co-driver Marcello Zani looked at me and said, “You don’t need to trailbrake this car.” 

I took that as code for, “You don’t need to slide our $300,000-plus car sideways.” Alright, Marcello.

The steering weight wasn’t too heavy, even in the new Corsa mode, and loaded up nicely. Turn in was sharp, but this electric power steering system wasn’t as telepathic or communicative as the system in the Porsche GT3 RS.

As I slid out of turn 3 into turn 4 I grabbed the column-mounted carbon fiber shift paddle to bang from second to third gear. It didn’t last long and instantly I went into fourth gear before having to downshift for turn 5 and 6.

Each gearshift from the 8-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission hit quick as Maserati sped shifts up by 0.2 seconds compared to the MC20. The transmission pre-loads the gear change with more torque so it’s ready and then it hits hard enough to whack occupants’ lower backs, even in Sport mode, each and every upshift. The same feeling didn’t accompany downshifts, which are much smoother, even in rapid succession when heading into the 90-degree turn 8.

The GT2 Stradale brake experience is an adventure

For the money, massive carbon ceramic brakes are standard equipment with 6-piston front and 4-piston rear floating calipers clamping down on the massive pizza-sized rotors. The rotors themselves have been upsized from the MC20. They are 0.1 inch thicker and 0.3 inch larger in diameter up front and 0.3 inch thicker and 0.8 inch larger in diameter in the rear.

The brake-by-wire setup…was consistently a mixed bag. I drove two cars in total, one on the track and one on the street. The experience was the same. At slow speeds the brakes were difficult to modulate with an instant on-or-off situation and instant bite. At speed the situation was different and felt more progressive with more daylight in the pedal travel. Another journalist in a different car felt the opposite at speed. Sharing a car on the street they noted the system felt entirely different, almost as if the systems were calibrated differently. Your brake experience may vary by car? It’s a bit unclear.

To the GT2’s credit, the brake-by-wire system felt less wooden and more confidence-inspiring than the C8 Corvette Z06’s brake-by-wire tuning.

The GT2 Stradale is simple to go fast in

Slide into a recent Porsche 911 GT3 RS and the experience can overwhelm, confuse, or just seem daunting. That is the opposite experience of the GT2 Stradale, which is actually quicker than the GT3 with a 0-60 mph sprint of 2.8 seconds (the Porsche takes 3.0 seconds). Top speed is 201 mph (the Porsche tops out at 184 mph).

Slide into the carbon bucket seats—more on those in a bit—and hit the start button (which is blue and I love it) mounted on the carbon fiber steering wheel. Flick the raised drive mode knob on the carbon fiber center console with a twist to Sport or Corsa, and it’s off to the theoretical races. Sort of.

Switching between drive modes—which include Wet, GT, Sport, and Corsa—requires a physical twist of the knob. Once in Corsa mode there’s a 4-level submenu system that is navigable by turning the drive mode knob. Once into Corsa mode’s submenu system the user will need to back out of it rather than just leave Corsa to go back into Sport mode. It’s cumbersome and especially annoying at speed. 

Confusing matters worse, the drive mode selector itself has a touchscreen panel, but it’s only a touchscreen for sliding back and forth between drive modes and damper firmness. Changing either requires twisting of the physical drive model dial itself. The three damper firmness modes are Soft, Mid, and Hard. Corsa mode (as with all others) defaults the dampers to Soft, which I found to be fine around Ascari. Another journalist scraped the front end on a few carousels. The springs are 8% stiffer up front and 10% stiffer in the rear than the MC20 while the dampers are the same with GT2 Stradale-specific calibrations. On the streets between the Ascari circuit and the hotel in Marbella the GT2 Stradale was comfortable and livable, even in Corsa mode.

There is limited adjustability here. Within Corsa those four sub modes dial back the safety and traction systems and loosen things a bit more. But you’re never completely alone. Antilock braking stays on forever. Nobody wants a lockup.

That trail brake slide situation at turn 3? The car was in Sport mode with the electronic safety nets all enabled. Maserati’s team has tuned this system to allow fun to be had without intervention. I didn’t need an intervention.

Corsa mode instantly remaps the throttle to the point the car leaps forward with authority. So much so it surprised me as the rapid rate of speed in which I happened to leave pit lane. Corsa mode uncorks the skinny pedal.

GT mode on the street really puts a wet blanket on everything. The transmission short shifts and keeps the revs below 2,000 rpm as much as possible. The dampers default to the Soft mode and are comfortable. This car could eat up some highway with ease. But even in GT mode the dampers can be changed to Hard.

Road trippable? Yes. A serious, hardcore car? No.

The GT2 Stradale is a Maserati that…lacks emotion

Hard to believe the Tridente in Modena built a quiet car, and yet here we are. At idle the 631-hp 3.0-liter twin-turbo V-6 that produces 531 pound-feet of torque is hushed with a low rumble. Note that’s up 10 hp over the standard MC20 thanks to large intakes and better ability to breathe.

As the car pulled out of the pits I heard as much noise from the pebbles being kicked up from the semi-slick tires as I did from the two exhaust tips. During a front straight flyby the GT2 Stradale sounded…fine. Certainly not loud. Borderline anonymous. Where’s the fire and fury?

In the cabin at speed on the track the GT2 was not visceral, not angry, not loud, and it certainly did not evoking emotions. Is this an Italian car?

The German Porsche 911 GT3 is a screamer. And the English McLaren Artura (after an exhaust rethink) can sound downright angry when its available Sport exhaust system opens its active valves.

On the street it was the same situation, except occupants could distinctly hear the turbos sucking in air when partial throttle was applied. But on the track, the turbo suction noise was weirdly absent, likely due to the wind noise at speed and more than partial throttle applications.

Maserati must not be deaf to the situation because Antonia Esposito, chief engineer of the GT2 Stradale and the race car, said the team’s currently developing an optional titanium race exhaust system. It’ll be a bolt-on dealer-install option that is not street legal. Track only. But Esposito was quick to note he’s not coming to track you down, so if it ends up on the street, so be it. He trailed off when I asked if the ticket’s just on the owner, though Esposito noted people would “need to swap their exhaust systems back and forth for track days.” Sure.

The titanium exhaust system will be available in the second half of the year, and it’ll shave 16 pounds off the GT2 Stradale’s already paltry 3,009-pound curb weight, and check in at 98 decibels. Esposito said that is because 98 db is the limit for certain tracks.

Final specs aren’t in place yet, but the titanium exhaust system will probably delete both catalytic converters, the particulate filter, and maybe even the mufflers. The team hasn’t decided on the mufflers, yet.

The GT2 Stradale has functional race car-like looks 

The visual similarities between the GT2 race car and GT2 Stradale are noticeable because the two were designed and engineered by the same teams.

The changes between the MC20 and GT2 Stradale are all about weight reduction and aerodynamics. The front and rear bumpers of the Stradale are new with gaping air intakes, the hood and fenders are both vented, and there’s dedicated brake cooling ducts. The massive rear wing is smaller than the race cars, but its design mimics the track car with swan-neck struts like the 911 GT3 RS. The side intakes alone were increased 20% to suck in more air. The forged aluminum 20-inch wheels feature center locks—which save about 42 pounds of unsprung mass alone—and are wrapped in 245/35 front and 305/45 rear Michelin Cup 2 rubber, which is code for street-legal race slicks.

All the aero work is functional and adds up to 1,100 pounds of downforce at 174 mph. While not felt at low speeds, at 131 mph heading into turn 14 the GT2 Stradale is rock solid and stable as it’s pushed into its rubber feet on the asphalt.

An interesting race car-like feature is the brake light system. Like an F1 car, under hard braking the four-way flashers will kick on, warning others the car is shedding speed rapidly. Inside the cabin you hear the four-way indicators. At first it was fun, on the track it seemed like it could be useful, but on the street it quickly became annoying. Safety isn’t always fun.

Inside, the GT2 Stradale nets a different center console than the MC20, and it’s hewn from carbon fiber to shave 3.3 pounds. The standard seats are carbon fiber buckets that shave about 44 pounds from the center of the car. The passenger bucket’s fixed in place upright but can manually slide fore and aft. The driver’s bucket manually slides fore and aft, but it has a power height adjustment and can be moved lower than the passenger seat. The carbon buckets are fitted with Alcantara-covered foam padding that’s available in Small and Large. Test cars were fitted with the Large seats, which have padding that’s 0.4 inches thinner than the Small. At 5-foot-10 with a medium-to-fit build, the Large seats fit like a glove and I imagine the Small seats with thicker padding would feel tight. Even though they didn’t look comfortable, the Large buckets were all-day comfortable and would seemingly be fine for a road trip.

The dashboard is covered in suede material and has a short but wide 10.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system. The interface is right out of nearly any other Stellantis product and anyone that’s been in a Chrysler Pacifica will feel right at home. It’s simple to use and better than anything found in a McLaren or Ferrari in terms of ease-of-use. There’s even a volume knob on the center console mounted between the seats.

On the street the rearview mirror is useless and nothing can be seen through the engine bay. A standard digital rearview camera is marginally better, but the camera is mounted low so as to not be obstructed by the rear wing, which results in a view that barely shows the bottom half of the cars following. The driver side mirror is oddly limited in its adjustability whereas the passenger side mirror doesn’t suffer the same fate.

Maserati GT2 Stradale costs Porsche and McLaren money

When the 2025 Maserati GT2 Stradale arrives stateside in August it’ll cost $311,995, including the $1,995 destination fee. Maserati will only make 914 (honoring 1914, the year the automaker was founded).

That’s for a base GT2 Stradale, which was nowhere in sight at the launch. Each test car was optioned up with the Performance Pack for $13,750 that adds a more advanced Corsa mode with the sub levels along with an electronic limited-slip rear differential. Euro buyers can option a Performance Package Plus for about $5,000 (USD) that adds a fire extinguisher and four-point harnesses that hook to the standard harness bar mounted behind the carbon bucket seats (the bar disappears if you option for the comfort seats, which I never saw and can’t imagine why someone should option given the comfort of the buckets). Mount your own of both, Americans.

For the same or similar money, buyers could just as well have the more adjustable Porsche 911 GT3 RS (should you score an allocation) or a McLaren Artura with its plug-in hybrid powertrain’s silent electric driving capabilities or ability to roar an angry beat.

As I pulled the blue GT Stradale into the hotel parking lot as the sun was setting, a kid about my son’s age (he’s about to be nine) dropped his jaw. He whipped out his cell phone and frantically started snapping photos and recording video. Surely for the Tik and the Toks or the Instas.

At the end of the day aren’t all these cars about being seen in? This one’s worthy of that and it demands the attention of kids with cell phones.

Maserati paid for travel, lodging, and delicious coffee to bring you this test drive review.