Cured of cancer, Dean Stoneman still dreams of Formula One

In 2010, Andy Soucek, the first champion of the brand new Formula 2 championship, found a successor in Dean Stoneman. With 6 victories, as many pole positions, and 13 podiums in 18 races, this 20-year-old young man claimed the Formula 2 title and, thanks to this, was set to make his first laps at the wheel of a Formula One car during the young driver days in Abu Dhabi 2010, on behalf of the Williams team.

Crowned with his title and his adventure at the wheel of the FW32, the Briton then commits to Formula Renault 3.5 with the ISR Racing team, where he is supposed to team up with Daniel Ricciardo. However, illness would decide otherwise: « After my victory in F2, I was training very hard for the F1 test. I was strengthening my neck and doing 2 to 3 hours of training a day to be ready for the best day of my life. Then, in January 2011, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It had spread to my liver and chest from my right testicle, and it’s not a pleasant thing to hear. But I didn’t sit and cry. I asked if I could be treated. The specialist told me that if I didn’t get hospitalized and treated, I was two days away from being incurable and would have only two weeks to live. They said there was a 40% chance of survival, and it was hard to accept, but we sat down and dealt with it. In the end, it wasn’t my time, it wasn’t my turn, I’m a fighter. It was a big shock for many people, but a lot of people supported me. I underwent 14 hours of chemotherapy a day. […] You have to be strong and keep going. Because I’m a racing driver, I didn’t give up, I took a one-hour break and went back, I did another session » explains the Englishman on BBC South Today.

Now cured of a cancer that affects one in 20,000 men in France—often in the prime of life—Dean Stoneman has returned to competition and still hopes to realize his dream, as other athletes, cancer survivors, have been able to do afterwards: « My ambition remains to be in F1. I had racing in mind, but my number one goal was to survive. Now, after what I’ve been through over the past 14 months, I want to return to competition. »

The Englishman knows, however, that the road leading to a Formula One seat is long and fraught with obstacles, as he experienced during his return to competition at the wheel of a Radical during a sportscar event at the Silverstone circuit: « It was so hard on the body after being away for a whole season. You don’t realize how much you rely on your hands and physical fitness […] I was fast for the first ten laps, but after that, I was really struggling. It’s very demanding! Being back behind the wheel was awesome. The last car I drove before that was a Formula One, so I went from an F1 car to a hospital bed before coming back in a World Series car all in a year: it’s quite an achievement! […] My goal this season is to compete, train, and regain my physical form, and then hopefully return to where I left off last season. »

After also taking the wheel of a single-seater during the winter testing of the World Series by Renault, Dean Stoneman might turn to North America and the Indy Light Series, the IndyCar feeder series, to get back on track.