Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale Introduction The new Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale will be the fastest, lightest and most powerful car in the Maserati model line-up when it goes on sale in the first quarter of 2011. Inspired by the Trofeo GranTurismo MC and the race-winning GT4 motorsport programs, the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale will have more power, less weight, razor-sharp handling and a 301km/h top speed. Responding to Maserati customer demands for a GranTurismo capable of balancing their road-driving needs with their race-driving desires, it incorporates the handling and aerodynamic lessons from all three of Maserati s current racing programs. With 336kW (450 horsepower), it has more power (13kW, 10hp) from the 4.7-litre V8 engine than the GranTurismo S, while its 510Nm of torque is a further 20Nm improvement. This helps to slash the 0-100km/h sprint time, which the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale covers in just 4.6 seconds, and stretches the top speed to 301km/h. Its race-bred heritage is highlighted by a 110kg weight reduction from the GranTurismo S, down to 1770kg. It mirrors the advantages Maserati has in racing by retaining the optimal 48.5 : 51.5 weight distribution to ensure handling balance and even tyre wear. It uses advanced electronics to slash gear-shift times from the upgraded MC Race Shift electroactuated transaxle gearbox to just 60 milliseconds. It is also the first Maserati in history to have a dedicated Race mode to add to its upgraded Auto and Sport modes in a simplified dash layout. It produces more aerodynamic down force without producing more aerodynamic drag, it produces more power without using more fuel and it is more agile without sacrificing the GranTurismo S s highly praised ride quality. With the removal of the rear seats, it is the first two-seat Maserati since the MC12 and has also benefited from new Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, custom-developed Pirelli tyres, a unique suspension layout and carbon-fibre race seats. In this configuration, the GranTurismo MC Stradale will be on sale in all major markets, with the exceptions of the USA, Canada and Korea. 1
Positioning The push for the GranTurismo MC Stradale came from existing GranTurismo and GranTurismo S customers who wanted a car that looked and felt like the GT4 and Trofeo race cars, but was road legal and just as comfortable as their existing models. With the removal of the rear seats, the GranTurismo MC Stradale will be the only two-seat Maserati in the current line-up. It has been designed to give a deeply engaging, racing-car driving experience, regardless of what kind of road its drivers are on. To achieve that and still maintain Maserati s traditional values, it had to look, sound and feel like a racing car without sacrificing its road comfort. This dual personality encouraged Maserati to fit the car with a Race mode which, at the touch of a button, gives the GranTurismo MC Stradale super-fast MC-Race gear shifting, a louder exhaust note and more freedom from the Maserati Stability Program. Yet it was also designed to be easy to drive and as comfortable as possible, so it retains all of the inherent handling, ride and stability benefits of the GranTurismo S s long wheelbase. This long wheelbase is the key which unlocks the GranTurismo MC Stradale s broad range of handling abilities across different conditions, allowing it to switch from a super-aggressive track car to a city commuter or autobahn express in the time it takes for the driver s mood to change. It has the speed to be a road-legal racing car, yet it has the progressive handling to be considered an extremely usable super-sports car. The GranTurismo MC Stradale also provides the latest step in the well-trodden path between Maserati s racing programs and its production road cars and, often, back again. In the 1990s, the Ghibli Open Cup race car gave birth to the Ghibli Cup and a decade later the Trofeo GranSport gave birth to the GranSport MC Victory. At the pinnacle of recent Maserati s road-to race story, the FIA GT-winning MC12 was developed directly from the MC12 Stradale. Like its predecessors, the GranTurismo MC Stradale has borrowed heavily from its racing car twin, taking a unique body design that is heavily based around the requirements of the track. It is a body package that offers new designs for the front splitter, the bumper, the bonnet, the front guard panels, the sills and even the exhausts and the rear bumper. To emphasize the harder-edged nature of the GranTurismo MC Stradale, Maserati even offers the car with an optional roll cage and a four-point racing harness. 2
While the GranTurismo MC Stradale has been stripped of 110kg of weight to help sharpen its handling, acceleration and response, some of its key elements are also available for four-seat Maserati buyers in the form of the MC Sport Line option package. The MC Sport Line offers GranTurismo S buyers the chance to upgrade the exterior, interior and suspension to make a more race-like Maserati without sacrificing its four-seat capability. Weight Reduction The relationship between weight and performance has been nurtured at Maserati for more than 90 years, but few production models before it have been as aggressively lightened as the GranTurismo MC Stradale. One obvious source of weight reduction has been the removal of the rear seats to turn the four-seat GranTurismo S into a two-seat super sports car, but this was as much to emphasize its driver-focused nature as it was about weight reduction. While weight reduction was a key focus, maintaining the GranTurismo s superior, rear-biased weight distribution was always a key factor. Maserati s engineers have achieved this, by balancing the weight reduction for the GranTurismo MC Stradale s front and rear axles and one of the biggest weight savings has come from the addition of stiff, light-weight racing front seats. Drivers who want a race-style Maserati obviously want more of a race-style sound, so the GranTurismo MC Stradale has a specifically tuned exhaust and insulation to create a unique sound. The new, carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes are lighter than the dual-cast alloy brakes on the GranTurismo S as well. The GranTurismo MC Stradale also has specific, lighter flow-formed 20-inch alloy wheels. The new MC-Race mode The GranTurismo MC Stradale reflects its more-specific focus by using three driving modes: Auto, Sport and the new Race mode. 3
The throttle pedal is more responsive in all modes and the Race mode introduces a higher level of driving intensity to the GranTurismo range. The Race mode, at the push of a button, maximizes its performance in all of its adjustable parameters to become the fastest way to drive the GranTurismo MC Stradale. The Sport mode is available with manual shifting via the sporty steering column-mounted paddles, which are easy to reach regardless of the steering angle. On full throttle, it is capable of shifting in 100 milliseconds and it will also open the exhaust s bypass valve above 4000rpm for a more intense exhaust note. When cruising, the selection of Sport mode will automatically change down one gear. The Race mode is all-new and operates only with manual shifting. The most aggressive of all the GranTurismo MC Stradale s driving modes, the system is designed so that the driver can feel each shift as it changes up. With the Race mode, the GranTurismo MC Stradale can shift gears in only 60 milliseconds (0.06 seconds) thanks to its computer control and optimized gear selection. It also offers the option of Sequential Downshifting, which works by the driver simply holding in the down-shift paddle on the left of the steering column while braking. The car will keep changing down gears at exactly the right moment as the speed lowers until the driver releases the gear-shift paddle. This is very useful when a section of road turns from a long, fast section into a tight turn, where the GranTurismo MC Stradale driver only needs to make one movement to select the correct gear, rather than a series of gearshifts. If drivers push the Race button while cruising in Auto, it will automatically change down two gears (from sixth to fourth, for example, which is useful for overtaking). If they choose it while cruising in Sport, it will change down one gear. 4
Auto Sport Race Shift times (best) 240ms 100ms 60ms Auto yes no no Exhaust bypass valve Closed Open Open permanently over 4000rpm Mode gear movements - Auto Sport: 1 gear down - Auto Race: 2 gears down - Sport Auto: 1 gear up - Sport Race: 1 gear down - Race Sport: 1 gear up - Race Auto: 2 gears up The Engine The GranTurismo MC Stradale s engine has 336kW of power at 7000rpm, which is a 13kW improvement versus the GranTurismo S. There is also more torque, with a 20Nm jump from the GranTurismo s strong 490Nm to 510Nm at 4750rpm, with a thicker torque curve at lower rpm. Most of the improvements have come from the Low Friction Program, which involved the redesign of the oil sump s fluid dynamics and Diamond-Like Coating of the tappets and the camshaft lobes. The result is an engine that is both more powerful and fuel efficient, with correspondingly lower emissions. 5
Exhaust While the GranTurismo S has been praised widely for the sonorous beauty of its engine note, Maserati has chosen a more intense sound as the target for the GranTurismo MC Stradale. The lighter rear silencers create a richer, more-intense and louder sound. Closer to the spirit of a racing car, the GranTurismo MC Stradale s exhaust retains its exhaust bypass flap, which bypasses the silencer to create its sportiest identity. This flap is permanently open in Race mode and opens from 4000rpm in Sport. The exhausts have also been repositioned higher and towards the centre of the car, as they are in the GT4 and Trofeo racing cars. Braking improvements Braking breakthroughs are something of a tradition at Maserati, and the GranTurismo MC Stradale continues the trend. Where the Quattroporte and GranTurismo both pioneered the use of dual-cast braking technology, the GranTurismo MC Stradale is the first volume production Maserati to use carbon-ceramic brakes as standard equipment. These brakes are both lighter and more-powerful than the brakes on the GranTurismo S, to reflect the higher demands of track-based work. They are also designed to operate effectively for lap after lap of the world s most demanding race tracks, and the system has been extensively tested at the Nürburgring, Fiorano, Le Castellet (Paul Ricard), Nardò and Balocco. At the heart of the brake system are the carbon-ceramic Brembo brake discs activated by a larger (27mm in diameter, up from 25.4mm) brake master cylinder. At the front, there are 380mm x 34mm ventilated discs that are lighter than the smaller 360mm x 32mm metal discs on the GranTurismo S. They are braked by a powerful six-piston, fixed-piston caliper. The larger rear discs are 360mm x 32mm, with a four-piston, fixed-piston caliper. 6
These brakes have been engineered and calibrated to keep the progressive feel of the GranTurismo S in on-road situations. The sporty pedal feeling with a shorter pedal stroke is kept even in a sustained period of heavy braking. This is thanks to an efficient cooling system. The aerodynamic upgrade on the GranTurismo MC Stradale involves each brake receiving an integral, two-piece cooling system, with ducting taking cool air from the grille and directing it into the centre of the disc. A gate in the trailing edge of the front guard panel then generates a smoother air flow and extracts the hot air from the braking system. Suspension Like everything else about the GranTurismo MC Stradale, the suspension and chassis layout has been designed to enhance the already-impressive track performance of the GranTurismo S without losing its abilities as a day-to-day car. It has been engineered to feel more like a racing car in the way it responds to the steering and the pedals and in its balance. To achieve this, Maserati s engineers stiffened the springs by eight percent at the front and the rear and used a damping system with performance tuning. The car rides lower than the GranTurismo S, with the standing height reduced by 10mm at the front and by 12mm at the rear. The idea for this setup came from the Trofeo championship, where it was already greatly appreciated by racers for its higher grip levels and tactile, intuitive driving feel. It also had the front anti-roll bar s diameter increased to 25mm while increasing the rear anti-roll bar s diameter to 23mm. Both of these changes were to lower the car s global roll angle. The car has been developed specifically to be comfortable, progressive, balanced and entertaining for all drivers, while its Race mode is designed to deliver fast lap times in complete security. 7
Tyres The GranTurismo MC Stradale rides on a new, custom-developed tyre from the Italian tyre maker Pirelli the same company that developed and supplies the tyres for the GranTurismo MC Trofeo. Designed to be at home both on the road and on the track, the 20-inch Pirelli PZero Corsa tyres are slightly wider than the standard tyres on the GranTurismo S and offer even more grip. The new tyres are 255/35 ZR20 at the front and 295/35 ZR20 at the rear. Developed in conjunction with Maserati s test engineers and based on the experience gained from the Trofeo championship, the new PZero Corsa tyres have been designed to move the handling-comfort balance of the GranTurismo S s tyres further towards pure handling. While the GranTurismo S already had good track performance, the new tyre has been developed to develop maximum grip very quickly and, in concert with a more precise feeling, to maintain that grip for as many laps as possible, thanks to rubber compounds derived from Pirelli s racing experience. The rear tyres have an asymmetric pattern with large tread blocks on the outside shoulder for high lateral grip, while the front tyres have a directional tread pattern so they can deliver high grip in the wet and the dry. Exterior design changes The exterior changes to the award-winning GranTurismo S have all been taken directly from the racing program. The end result is a car that has great aerodynamic downforce at high speed without creating more drag, even while it is diverting airflow into effectively cooling its brakes. It is a longer car, with the front splitter and redesigned rear bumper adding 48mm to the total length, but producing downforce to justify it. The track experience and computational fluid dynamics have resulted in an aerodynamic package that has 25 percent more front downforce and 50 percent more rear downforce at 200km/h than the GranTurismo S. 8
The front splitter, side skirts and the front guard panels all combine as one unit to push the nose of the car down at high speed, to cool the brakes, extract the hot air from the braking system and to provide downforce along the length of the car. The skirt has been particularly detailed, blending into the guards to maintain the underbody airflow and create downforce. The detailed aerodynamic designs even include two hot air extraction outlets in the bonnet. The rear bumper has also been re-profiled, with the exhausts emerging closer to the centre of the car and ducts carved into the bumper to allow underbody airflow to escape. These holes help to stabilize the airflow further away from the rear of the car, which lowers drag. There is also a more pronounced lip spoiler on the boot lid whose main job is to produce high-speed downforce. The flow-formed 20-inch wheels are not only lighter and unique to the GranTurismo MC Stradale, but they also fit into the Maserati design language, with the Trident neatly integrated into the double spokes. Interior The design of the rear area, the lightweight new race-style seats, a sporty leather/alcantara combination for the upholstery, a redesigned instrument cluster and a new human-machine interface are the interior highlights of the GranTurismo MC Stradale. The GranTurismo MC-Stradale seats are focused on high performance, delivering excellent support in all driving conditions and maintaining the GranTurismo s traditional combination of sporting ability and sumptuous luxury. The seats combine a carbon-fibre shell with high-tech padding and materials and even have the Trident logo stitched into the headrests. They offer manual adjustment to move the base backwards and forwards and to move the backrest angle.they also offer three different height options, adjustable on demand. One of the most important changes has been to the Human-Machine Interface, because changing the driving mode is now a one-touch system, which is even more simple and intuitive. While the car starts in Auto mode, it can be moved to Sport by pushing the Sport button once or moved to Race by touching the Race button once. 9
With the deletion of the Ice mode, its place on the transmission tunnel has been taken over by the Auto button, which now sits closer to the Reverse button. Both the Sport and Race buttons are on the centre dash. While the operation is simpler, the entire look is different, too. With its sportier philosophy, the luxury hints of chrome and alloy have been removed from the GranTurismo MC Stradale in favour of a black look to reflect race-car interiors. This extends, even, to the instrument cluster, where the traditional Maserati blue background colour has given way to black, with an entirely new typeface for the speedo and tacho dials. The display is also upgraded to include MC-R when the driver selects Race mode. To reinforce just how at home the GranTurismo MC Stradale will feel for race-style driving, the pedals are now drilled aluminium as standard. While the rear seats have been removed, the style has not. The rear is trimmed in luxurious carpet, with the Maserati Trident stitched onto an Alcantara pad in the centre of the rear bulkhead. Lighter than leather, Alcantara is used to trim the centre console, the armrest lid, the door armrests and handles and the curve above the instrument cluster. Options To reflect its more-heightened focus, the GranTurismo MC Stradale also has the option of a roll cage, which bolts in to the car. This option also comes with standard four-point racing harnesses, which bolt on to the rear cross bar of the roll cage. A fire extinguisher is also available for safety, just as it is in Maserati s racing cars. To further emphasize the link with the Maserati Trofeo experience and to provide everything the driver would need for track-day use, there is the option of a Maserati racing kit, which includes a racing suit, racing gloves and a dedicated bag. A racing helmet is also available to complete the perfect track-day set. Alcantara roof lining is also optional, along with carbon-fibre interior trimming and a carbon-fibre gearshift paddle set. 10
The MC Sport Line s carbon-fibre items will also be available to personalize the GranTurismo MC Stradale s interior and exterior looks. The GranTurismo MC Stradale can also be stressed by the specific, custom-developed livery, with a Maserati Trident skewed at 45 degrees on the roof and the MC Stradale logo on both sides of the car. The signature red and grey MC streaks will also help to show the work of the aerodynamicists, with the colour entering the brake inlet ducts and exiting the vent in the front quarter panel before blending in to the door. 11
Technical Summary Body Seating Layout Engine Max Power Max Torque Kerb weight 0-100km/h Top speed Length Two-door coupe Two seats Front mid-engined, rear-drive 4.7-litre, DOHC, all-alloy V8 450hp (336kW) @ 7100rpm 510Nm @ 4750rpm 1770kg 4.6 seconds 301km/h 4933mm Detailed Specifications Engine Capacity Bore x stroke 4691cc 94mm x 84.5mm Compression ratio 11:1 Gearbox Type Modes Minimum shift time electro-actuated six-speed manual gearbox Auto, Sport, Race 0.06 seconds (in Race Mode) Operation Steering column-mounted paddles (in manual mode) 12
Weight Kerb weight 1770kg Weight distribution 48.5 : 51.5 Suspension Layout Anti-roll bar (front) Anti-roll bar (rear) Double wishbones, coil springs, fixed-rate dampers 25mm 23mm Tyres Pirelli PZero Corsa Size (front) Size (rear) 255/35 ZR20 295/35 ZR20 Brakes Front discs 380mm x 34mm Carbon-ceramic Ventilated Front calipers Six-piston monobloc Fixed caliper Rear 360mm x 32mm 13
Carbon-ceramic Ventilated Four-piston monobloc Fixed caliper Consumption Combined cycle 14,4 l/100km CO 2 Emissions (combined cycle) 337 g/km The content of this document is based on information available at time of production and may change without notice. 14