Firstly, we need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the three most used sports car drivetrains (four-wheel drive not included as it prioritizes grip over handling, most suitable for trucks).

Front-Wheel Drive

Let’s start from front-wheel drive. The reason why this system is chosen because it’s low-cost, takes up less room (good for passengers and luggage), has integrated transaxle (making it the most power-efficient drivetrain), puts more weight on the front for better traction on slippery roads, and makes the vehicle easier to control for inexperienced drivers.

And the cons are it has a very poor weight distribution ratio of 60:40 or worse, makes the vehicle understeer at handling limits (because of heavier front), easily overwhelms front wheels, is very bad at managing power above 200 HP without electronic controls, reduces front traction during acceleration (causing wheelspin and more torque steer), comes with asymmetrical design bad for handling too.

Front-wheel drive is good mostly for regular and affordable cars. It’s easy to pack, can be implemented with cheap production costs, and makes the car more tame – good for beginners. Its downsides are primarily in handling. So this system is not suitable for sports cars who are made for nimble performance.

All-Wheel Drive

This system provides great traction, which is good for high-power acceleration from a stand still. It’s also more reliable for bad-weather handling. Sometimes it comes with symmetrical design, depending on how the system are configured, it can copy the front-wheel-drive or rear-wheel-drive handling characteristics by sending most output to the front or rear.

Unfortunately, all-wheel drive is the most expensive compared to others and it’s not power-efficient. It’s also heavy and more complicated. Weight is poorly distributed, although not as poorly as front-wheel drive.

All-wheel drive is used with rear-biased setup in many high-performance sports cars. Nearly all Lamborginis use this type of drivetrain, also the Ferrari FF, Nissan GT-R, and many Porsches. It’s chosen because of its traction advantage for powerful engines. Sometimes all-wheel drive is kept inactive until the car detects a slip, providing mainly rear-wheel drive handling characteristics. Automakers who use this layout knows that traction is everything. High horsepower will overcome extra mass and drivetrain loss with ease.

Rear-Wheel Drive

Weight distribution in rear-wheel drive is excellent, you can get 50/50 easily. It also has symmetrical design. As a result, it will be able to provide a lot better handling. Rear wheels are used only to drive, while front wheels are only to turn and stop the car. With these tasks separated, traction can be maximized for both front and rear wheels, resulting in an improved handling at the limit. Losing traction for the rear wheels just means that you can steer the car by throttling more to push the rear out for a tight turn, and throttling less to pull it back in line. Rear weight distribution also gives more traction for better acceleration. Lastly, power loss is not much more than front-wheel drive.

The cons of rear-wheel drive are it has poor traction on slick roads (ballast above drive wheels is needed to fix this), and it’s not suitable for beginners since its handling characteristics are more difficult to master. So rear-wheel drive is for those who love pure performance and know how to control it. This layout is great at delivering power, which is why many sports cars use it.