Driving the Maserati MC20 GT2 race car – car pictures of the week

What happens when you take the evo Car of the Year-winning Maserati MC20 and give it a radical makeover with racing suspension, a sequential gearbox and more than 1000kg of downforce? You get this: the MC20 GT2. And we’ve driven it…

In issue 321 of evo, we took a trip to Italy to sample the racer around Autodromo di Modena, with coaching from ex-Ferrari test driver Andrea Bertolini. You can pick up a copy of the magazine in-store or via our online shop to read the full feature. 

The GT2 category is designed for amateur drivers as well as seasoned professionals, and the MC20 has thus been built to cater for a wide range of skill levels. With that said, there’s nothing particularly friendly about the spec sheet – it’s still a 621bhp, carbon-bodied missile running on slicks and generating huge downforce. 

Maserati has fitted double wishbone suspension, adjustable Ohlins dampers and steel racing brakes in the transition to GT2 spec, and thankfully, there’s variable traction control and ABS to help settle into the driving experience. As our man Henry Catchpole found out, the GT2 is a car that inspires confidence almost straight away: 

‘Piling on the throttle out of turn three onto the back straight I can feel the rear wheels just start to over-rotate nicely with the boost and the car almost floats wide over the kerbs with an easily administered few degrees of correction. Once I’ve discovered this my confidence grows and I find I’m actually looking at the predictive lap times on the screen. It’s not a car that’s bubbling with texture and feedback, but for something with over 600 turbocharged horsepower it’s also a very smooth, surprisingly undemanding race car to drive in many respects.’

To read the full test, grab a copy of evo 321 in-store or from the evo shop.