Maserati MC20 2022 UK first drive

There’s a fully digital instrument display and a fairly small but easy-to-navigate infotainment touchscreen in the centre. On the lower console there’s a big driving-mode selector and gear selectors. 

There are several driving modes and, without taking breath, they go: GT, Sport, Corsa, CT Off (disabling the traction control system) and Wet (increasing the stability assistance). In the dial’s centre is a button that changes damper settings. There are three. Another breath: in GT mode, it’s Soft but you can push it to Mid; in Sport mode, it’s Mid but you can push it to Soft; and in Corsa mode, it’s Hard but you can push it to Mid.

The powertrain and stability-control system will adjust their responses respectively through those modes too, but the steering weight always stays the same. Good: I like how it does that in a McLaren or Ferrari. Perhaps I will here, too.

I will.

The MC20 joins a vast array of mid-engined alternatives, from the Audi R8 and the upcoming Lotus Emira through the Lamborghini Huracán, the McLaren Artura and all the way, perhaps, to Ferrari’s F8 Tributo and 296 GTB. At £190,275 before options, it straddles quite a lot of ground.

What’s telling about all of the MC20’s driving modes is the one marked GT. This feels like a car that could go distances. The engine, being turbocharged and a six, is relatively muted. It’s extremely smooth and makes its power broadly (with a little lag low down), while the gearshifts give good upshifts but occasionally hesitate doing down. It’s quick, of course – quicker than you would ever need on the road – but also long-legged and with generous gear ratios. Above 50mph, it still won’t accept the length of sixth gear. Right enough it’s a supercar powertrain, but it’s one built to rub along with easily.

A GT, then? It could be. It has a boot at the back, which gets a bit warm but is the size you would find in, say, the Corvette or the Lotus Elise, and a small cubby at the front. So the MC20 is, by mid-engined supercar standards, rather practical.

It’s also rather comfortable. I really like the way it goes down the road. In the UK, GT mode with the softer damper setting is usually fine.

Our test came in early January, so the 20in wheels were shod with 245/35 and 305/30 winter tyres, which often makes for a duller ride and almost always for less steering precision. But if the ride is nicer and steering sharper on conventional tyres, this will be ever more athletic. There are breathsto the way it moves, with never a shudder, never a thump, just a finely poised dynamism like the best of them. It’s comfortable, but also it feels ready for changes of direction. Those are hugely enjoyable too.

It turns with great engagement and enjoyment. The steering is relatively light and quick, at 2.2 turns between locks – not as fast or hyperactive as in a Ferrari and not as feelsome as in a McLaren but well measured and geared and not unlike, I would say, the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA’s. Which is absolutely no bad thing.

Which returns me to that long back story. Word had it that the MC20 was going to be an Alfa Romeo, and whether that’s true or not, it’s the latest iteration of Alfa Romeo sports saloon, the Giulia GTA, to which it dawned on me that the MC20 feels most closely related dynamically. Normally there would be scope for disappointment at a mid-engined supercar feeling most like a saloon, but remember how special the Giulia GTA is. This feels a little like that but unburdened: keener and lower, with its masses precisely where you would want them and fewer of them.