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Maserati GT2 Builds on 2025 Championship Success Ahead of Global 2026 Push

Maserati has never been shy about drama, but its modern racing renaissance is shaping up to be something more compelling than nostalgia. The 2025 season quietly confirmed what the Trident’s return to closed-wheel racing hinted at back in 2023: Maserati isn’t visiting the paddock—it’s moving in.

The proof comes with hardware. Lots of it.

Philippe Prette, driving the Maserati GT2 run by LP Racing, locked down the Am Class title in the GT2 European Series powered by Pirelli, successfully defending his championship crown after winning it in 2024. That’s not a footnote; that’s dominance. Ten wins from twelve races will do that, especially in a category designed to reward consistency rather than hero laps. The title was formally handed over on November 22 at the SRO Motorsports Group Awards in Venice—a suitably ornate setting for a brand that has always preferred silk gloves to pit-lane grease.

But the bigger story isn’t just what Maserati won. It’s where it’s going.

GT2, Confirmed—and Expanded

Maserati’s GT2 program is officially locked in for 2026, with the GT2 European Series returning and kicking off at Monza on May 30–31. That alone would be enough to keep Modena’s engineers busy, but Maserati is stacking the deck. The brand has signed on to the SRO GT Academy project, first announced during the 24 Hours of Spa, opening the door to something far more ambitious.

The new SRO structure introduces a Silver class, with the GT Academy title awarded to its champion. The prize? A full-season campaign in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup starting in 2027, run in either Silver or Pro-Am trim. In other words, Maserati is positioning itself not just as a constructor, but as a ladder—one that can carry drivers from GT2 into the sharp end of global endurance racing.

That’s not heritage marketing. That’s infrastructure.

America, Finally

For U.S. fans who’ve watched Maserati’s racing revival from afar, here’s the part that matters most: the Maserati GT2 and the unhinged MCXtrema are heading stateside.

The International GT Championship will, for the first time, welcome both cars into its GTX category. This isn’t a token appearance, either. The calendar reads like a greatest-hits album of American road racing: Sebring, Road Atlanta, Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Road America, Watkins Glen, VIR, Laguna Seca, Barber, and COTA. If there’s a better way to introduce a European GT weapon to American audiences, we haven’t found it.

Sebring kicks things off February 26 through March 1, which feels appropriate. The place is bumpy, unforgiving, and brutally honest—exactly the sort of circuit that exposes whether a car is built for headlines or for racing. Maserati seems confident it’s the latter.

Built to Travel

Part of that confidence comes from the GT2’s growing eligibility. Thanks to the 2025 rollout of Maserati’s Endurance Pack, the GT2 is now cleared to compete across an even broader range of series. The numbers are telling: over 20 championships, more than 170 races annually, and upwards of 100 race weekends spread across the calendar year.

That’s not boutique racing. That’s a global program.

It also reflects a subtle but important shift in Maserati’s motorsports philosophy. Where the brand once dipped into competition for prestige, it’s now engineering cars designed to work—across rulesets, continents, and driver skill levels. GT2 isn’t a halo project. It’s a platform.

A Century in the Making

All of this momentum lands in a year that carries serious historical weight. In 2026, Maserati will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its racing debut, which came in 1926 when the Tipo 26—wearing the Trident badge for the first time—entered the Targa Florio and promptly won its class.

That victory established a pattern: Maseratis don’t ease into competition; they announce themselves.

Nearly a century later, the names and technologies have changed, but the intent hasn’t. The GT2 program isn’t chasing Le Mans headlines or Formula One relevance. It’s doing something arguably more difficult—building credibility race by race, championship by championship, in series where performance matters more than mythology.

The takeaway is simple. Maserati’s return to racing is no longer a comeback story. It’s an expansion plan.

And judging by the trophy count, the calendar, and the circuits now on the itinerary, the Trident isn’t done carving its name into the asphalt anytime soon.

Source: Maserati

News

Maserati at 111: The Trident Sharpens for a New Century

Maserati doesn’t do quiet anniversaries. Fresh off unveiling its Meccanica Lirica project and announcing the return of GranTurismo and GranCabrio production to its historic Modena home, the Trident is now celebrating its 111th birthday. That milestone makes Maserati the longest-standing brand in Italy’s fabled Motor Valley—a region where longevity comes only to those who marry heritage with constant reinvention.

And reinvention is exactly what Maserati wants the world to witness as it approaches 2026: the Year of the Trident Centenary. Not a centenary of the company itself, but of the emblem that transformed a small mechanical workshop in Bologna into a global performance icon. In 1926, the first car to wear that badge—the Tipo 26—rolled onto the Targa Florio and promptly won its class. Built by the Maserati brothers. Driven by Alfieri Maserati himself. The DNA was set from day one.

Born in Bologna, Forged in Competition

The story starts earlier than the motorsport glory, of course. In 1914, brothers Alfieri, Ettore, and Ernesto founded Ditta Alfieri Maserati in downtown Bologna—essentially a tiny mechanical workshop powered by curiosity, race-tuned instincts, and an irrepressible love of speed. Another brother, Mario, sketched the now-famous trident after studying the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore. Local roots, mythic symbolism.

By 1926, those roots gave rise to the Tipo 26. It wasn’t just the first Maserati; it was the first Maserati to win something. And the wins kept coming: back-to-back victories at the Indianapolis 500, multiple Targa Florio triumphs, nine Formula 1 wins, and Fangio’s 1957 F1 World Championship. The Trident learned early that prestige is earned at full throttle.

Maserati retreated from single-seaters in the late 1950s but reawakened its racing spirit dramatically with the MC12 in the 2000s. Six FIA GT championships later, Maserati had proven it could still dominate the highest tiers of GT competition. Today, the GT2 program continues that arc, bringing Maserati back to circuits around the world.

A New Home, a New Era

A major shift came in 1940 when the Orsi family led Maserati to Modena, opening the Viale Ciro Menotti plant that remains the brand’s beating heart. Postwar Maserati began looking beyond the racetrack, launching its first road car—the A6 1500—in 1947. Then came one of the most important chapters: the 1963 Quattroporte. Before that, no one had combined genuine sports-car performance with full-size luxury-sedan comfort. Maserati didn’t just build a segment—it invented one.

Ownership changes followed. Citroën brought modern manufacturing processes. De Tomaso brought the Biturbo, which became one of the brand’s most successful models. But the modern Maserati renaissance kicked off in the 2000s: the fifth-gen Quattroporte, the first GranTurismo, the GranCabrio, and later a broader lineup including the Ghibli and Levante SUV.

Modena Reinvented

The most transformative moment of the last decade arrived in 2020. Maserati didn’t just debut the MC20—it rebuilt the Viale Ciro Menotti factory to produce it, complete with a dedicated paint shop and the assembly lab for the Nettuno V6. That engine, with its Formula 1–style pre-chamber combustion system, is protected by international patents and made entirely in-house. It’s one of the most advanced powerplants ever installed in a road-legal Italian car.

From there, Maserati filled the pipeline: the Grecale SUV in 2022, the GT2 Stradale in 2023 (a road-legal machine with unmistakable motorsport genes), and the track-only MCXtrema in 2024—62 units, each one wielding an extreme 730-hp version of the Nettuno.

2025: The Next Pivot Point

If Maserati’s 111th year sounds busy, 2025 is even bigger. Production of the MC Pura will begin—a model positioned as the “purest expression” of Maserati energy and performance. Bottega Fuoriserie will debut, blending bespoke creativity between Maserati and Alfa Romeo. And perhaps most symbolic of all, the GranTurismo and GranCabrio are returning home to Modena, built once again at Viale Ciro Menotti where their predecessors first came to life.

A Heritage That Still Feels Hand-Built

“We’re celebrating 111 years in the city that represents the beating heart of our brand,” said Maserati COO Santo Ficili. “The know-how preserved here for more than a century shapes our vision of performance, design, and craftsmanship.”

That’s a polished executive quote—but in Maserati’s case, it happens to ring true. Few automakers can claim a lineage that stretches from century-old race cars to cutting-edge carbon-fiber supercars without losing their soul along the way.

The Trident has made it this far by refusing to become ordinary. And if 2025 is any indication, Maserati’s next century won’t be quieter—it’ll just be faster.

Source: Maserati

News

Maserati Turns a Supercar Into a Modern Art Experiment at Milano AutoClassica

Maserati didn’t just show up to this year’s Milano AutoClassica—they arrived with a statement piece. Running November 21–23 at the Fiera Milano (Rho), the show is once again a magnet for collectors, restorers, and design obsessives. But among the polished concours queens and historically significant icons, one car is drawing a different kind of crowd: the Maserati MC20 Cielo “Opera d’Arte.”

This one-off creation is the latest expression of Maserati Fuoriserie, the brand’s personalization program that continues to blur the line between bespoke engineering and pure artistic freedom. If the standard MC20 Cielo is a study in clean mid-engine elegance, Opera d’Arte is the bold, extroverted cousin who raided the art-supply closet. And Maserati wants you to see the whole thing as a moving gallery exhibit.

Positioned near the ACI Storico stand, the car is the centerpiece of the talk “Art Car: when design meets the automobile,” scheduled for opening day. It’s fitting—this MC20 isn’t merely customized; it’s conceptualized.

MC20 Evolves, and Maserati Pushes Further

The Opera d’Arte arrives at a moment of momentum for Maserati’s halo supercar. After the MC20 Halo Car signaled Maserati’s return to full-blooded performance machines, the brand lifted the curtain this summer on the new MCPURA, unveiled at Goodwood and positioned as the next, more extreme evolution of the platform. The MCPURA comes in both coupé and Cielo forms, and it reworks nearly every dynamic attribute into something sharper, lighter, and more exclusive.

Against that backdrop, the MC20 Cielo Opera d’Arte serves as a reminder that exclusivity isn’t only about horsepower or lap times. Sometimes it’s about imagination.

Abstract Art Meets 621-HP Italian Engineering

The Fuoriserie team treated the car not as bodywork but as canvas. Inspired by early 20th-century Abstract art, Maserati spent more than a year in collaboration across its design, engineering, and customization departments to realize something genuinely unprecedented.

The result is a spyder coated in 15 hand-applied colors, each mixed to trigger a different emotional response. From acid yellows to warm oranges to vivid greens, the palette is aggressive, almost confrontational—far from the usual metallics and racing reds that dominate the supercar scene.

The craftsmanship behind it is equally dramatic: thousands of hours of meticulous brushing, layering, and finishing. Even the wheels carry their own graphic motifs, harmonizing with the body’s visual rhythm instead of disappearing into it.

Artistry Inside, Not Just Out

Open the butterfly doors, and the theme continues. The cabin blends hand-painted lower-dash elements with leather-trimmed upper sections. Alcantara seats feature laser-engraved patterns, while carbon fiber accents add the reminder that beneath the artistic flair is a very real, very fast performance machine.

Other Maserati one-offs have pushed boundaries—like the Bauhaus-inspired MC20 “Less is More…?”—but Opera d’Arte is the most fully realized interpretation yet of the brand’s belief that a supercar can be both sculpture and speed.

A Future for Cars as Art?

Maserati has long been comfortable walking the line between elegance and aggression, but this car suggests something different: a willingness to let creativity take the wheel entirely. In an era when personalization often means nothing more than picking from a curated menu, the MC20 Cielo Opera d’Arte serves as proof that bespoke can still mean bespoke—the kind where a brand hands over its design language and says, “Let’s experiment.”

At Milano AutoClassica, surrounded by decades of automotive history, Maserati’s newest creation stands out not because it rewrites performance specs, but because it reimagines what a supercar can be. A machine. A canvas. And, undeniably, a conversation starter.

Source: Maserati