Chasing the perfect balance and assessing different conditions: How I Race with Roman Stanek

13 June 2025

Roman Stanek has his own way of going about things on track and recently we sat down with the Invicta Racing driver to talk us through his racing style.

From feeling sorry for engineers, to adapting to the different conditions the same track may throw at you, Stanek explains how he races.

“The perfect balance for me is a stable rear and a good front. But it's a short blanket to have a car like that, and as I grow up, I see how it difficult it is to get.

“For example, if I do a setup on my simulator, I know hard it is for the engineers to set up the car.

“The best is to have a stable rear and a good front, and to have good grip in the high speed corners. You want to have as much downforce as possible, but you have to find that perfect window.

“That's the target for every team, it's where every team is trying to get too, to have as much potential, and to have two cars as stable as possible to transfer the power, we have a lot of horsepower, 620 HP if I’m not mistaken.

Stanek explained why he feels sorry for the engineers when setting up the car

“To describe my driving style, I think it's quite aggressive. I tend to smash the brakes a lot to feel the car stopping. Sometimes, which is not good always, I am over pushing slightly, which leads to little mistakes that I do in the push laps.

“Also in the races, if you attack the brakes a lot, you over push the corner, you destroy your tyres, and it's a mess. That's what I am working on now, and it's going pretty well. I feel like I've improved a lot in the races, with the pace especially.

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“I think my driving style works better in Qualifying. In the races, the car is heavy, you have to treat it like a small baby in your hands, because you have to take care of the tyres as they will degrade.

“In the end, if you can save your tyres more than your opponent, you can easily overtake them just because of your tyres are better.

“So I would say my driving style fits Qualifying more, because in the races, you have to take it easy on the brakes, on how you steer the car, how you upshift, how you downshift, every little detail counts.

Stanek explained how the same track can be very different to drive depending on the conditions

“In the end, everything you do, your inputs, your gears, upshifts, downshifts, your brake attack is transferring to the tyres, because that is what has contact with the track.

“I think your driving style also changes according to the track and also the conditions. So for example, Barcelona has largely been the same track for the last 15 years, but it's never the same.

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“The wind changes, so does the temperature, and the track gets older and older. Maybe it was raining before so there is less grip, maybe the track is dirtier, maybe the tyre pressure is different.

“There are so many factors, so it's never the same, but with what you have available to you, you have to perform. So even if it's raining, you have to go as fast as possible you have to do your best.

“Still to this day I drive go karts actually. I have my own go kart and a track near me, and sometimes I just go and drive.

The Czech driver explained how karting has helped him through the years

“Physically it's good, but also everything happens much faster on the karts, on a small track and everything happens very fast, so it's good for training.

“Karting has made a very big difference for me. Growing up 10, 11, 12, 13-years-old you are in that mode of being a racer, and you understand how things work, not also on track but travelling, food, the little details that help you get further in motorsport.

“I can't imagine racing without having a karting background.”