Alfa Romeo has gone and hit a home run on its first time at the bat when it hit the world stage with the Giulia Quadrifoglio. On paper, everything about the car seems fantastic, and our experience behind the wheel of this beast seems to confirm that we're indeed looking at something special, Italian styling non withstanding. But the sedan sports car segment is a crowded one, and the best gauge of the Alfa's true abilities is to pit it against the segment's best.

Motor Trend did just that by gathering the Italian hot rod and three of its closest competitors, the BMW M3, Mercedes-AMG C63 S, and the Cadillac ATS-V sedan. After weeding out the Mercedes for having a substantially slower lap time and axing the Cadillac for not being as well rounded as the Bimmer, the BMW is chosen as the car to represent the sports sedan segment against Alfa challenger.

It's a fitting matchup too since the BMW M3 is typically seen as the benchmark sedan for the segment. Worth noting is that this M3 is spec'd out with the competition package, which fixes almost all of the standard M3's ailments by adding power and handling prowess. When the two match up for a hot lap on the track, the Alfa Romeo just barely edges out the BMW, meaning the two are about as evenly matched as possible. The tie breaker is the size of the smile on Jason Cammisa and Jonny Lieberman's faces. Sorry BMW, but to your merit, you were pitted against engineers from Ferrari if that helps soften the blow.