My guess would be the target demographic of this car. They designed it to be short-shifted and driven in a more leisurely manner than a hard-core sports car. If you'll notice, you have 80% of full torque available at only 3,000 RPM. That puts the enegine right in the meat of it's powerband in the magic 40-80 MPH range (with correct gear selection, of course) of sporty driving.