Stanek reflects on ‘positive day’ in Imola after finishing eighth in the Sprint Race

Roman Stanek was very pleased with how his Imola Sprint Race went, as the Invicta Racing driver went from P12 to the points, giving him confidence for Sunday’s longer event.

The Czech driver was in good form as he crossed the line in P8, having overtaken Dino Beganovic and Joshua Duerksen before putting his teammate Leonardo Fornaroli under pressure late on for seventh.

Sitting in the Invicta motorhome afterwards, Stanek was happy with how things went, although he was slightly frustrated not to have qualified higher on Friday.

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“It really started with the Qualifying, that's where unfortunately it didn't go well for us,” started Stanek. “But it was the same also with the other guys, it was a bit unfair but that's the past.

“Today was a great race, very positive feeling about the car, the overall pace, but again it’s a shame that we started so far back, because I really think that we could have fought for much better positions than P8.

“But happy with my performance, and happy with how the race went and I have also improved myself a lot since Bahrain, where I struggled a lot in the race, but it’s a positive day.”

The 21-year-old says a large part of his improvements with managing tyre degradation have been on the Soft tyre, which was the compound of choice for the Sprint Race.

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Stanek was happy with how he kept the tyres in check for all 25 laps, but concedes that it was not easy, especially when it came to managing the gap to the cars both in front and behind him.

“It's very tricky,” said Stanek. “You want to push, and you want to keep in the DRS, but at the same time you want to save tyres. So, you have to find the sweet spot for not damaging the tyres too much, but also to push at the same time.

“It's the key for tomorrow, especially when we have the pit stop, that will be very important. But I think I managed it quite well today, and as I said, I improved on some stuff in my driving which improved the tyre deg, so happy about that.”

Looking ahead even more to Sunday, Stanek says the first thing on his agenda will be to stay out of trouble at the start, where he is set to line up in P12 again.

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“You have to keep your nose clean first of all,” Stanek said of the Feature Race. “A lot of things can happen, especially the start into Turn 1, trying to avoid everything which sometimes is difficult when we go so fast and you just cannot avoid it.

“So hopefully I can keep my nose clean and later in the race, just focus on the pace. Being in clean air helps a lot, the speed is good, so I think we can really move forward.”