Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio

Driver coaching puts the Alfa and its keeper to the test, and reveals why sports cars still have the edge

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RECENTLY, THE STELVIO JOINED ME FOR A two-day course with Paul Ripley and his High Performance Driver Coaching team.

It was an ideal opportunity to explore more of the Alfa’s character while I put into practice some of the methods from Paul's ‘evo Standard’ (see p162). The focus wasn't on outright speed, but on refining technique: better observation, smoother inputs, building consistency behind the wheel.

On the initial road section, the Alfa felt a little stiffer than usual. At first we thought North Yorkshire had some unusually poor road surfaces, but the unsettled, jittery feeling lingered, so we gave the car a once-over. The tyres were quite worn but still legal. More concerning was that all four were set to 44 psi, which is well above the recommended pressure. The car had its 10,000-mile service (covered under a £399 three-year service plan) just before the course, so they must have been erroneously over-inflated there.