Dean Stoneman, a former F2 World Champion, during Aspire4Sport at Aspire Dome in Doha yesterday. Stoneman won the FIA F2 Championship in 2010, securing a test drive with the Williams F1 team at the end of the season.
BY ARMSTRONG VAS
DOHA: Williams team driver and cancer survivor Dean Stoneman is eager to get back to what he loves the most: racing in Formula One.
“My aim is to be back in Formula One,” said the 21-year-old who was diagnosed with testicular cancer in January last year.
Stoneman was speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the Aspire4Sport Business and Sports conference, at Aspire Academy yesterday.
The Englishman looked set to become the next big name in F1 having made steady progress ever since he took to karting as a youngster and capped his steady rise by clinching the Formula 2 World Champion title in 2010.
The Formula Two title secured him a young drivers’ test with the Williams F1 team, until disaster struck in the form a life-threatening cancer.
“After winning the F2 championship, I was training very hard for the F1 test. It was in Abu Dhabi in January that I discovered that I had cancer. To be told that is not a nice thing to hear. The cancer spread to my liver, lungs and to the brain. It was a big shock to the system,” recalled Stoneman. “I didn’t sit there and cry. I said: ‘Can you cure me?’ They said there is a 40% chance of survival and it was hard to take in. But we sat there and dealt with it.
“The specialist said if I didn’t go in and have treatment I was two days away from being untreatable and two weeks from being dead.
“At the end of the day my time was not up, it was not my turn, and I am a fighter,” said the talented driver, who has an agreement with Williams Advanced Engineering to fine-tune the advanced simulator technology being developed at the Williams Technology Centre in Qatar.
What followed for the next weeks and months were visit to hospitals for chemotherapy sessions and a series of operations.
“I was having 14 hours of chemotherapy a day. Because I am a racing driver I was pushing things all the time, having an hour break and then going back and doing another session. And I had four operations so far,” disclosed Stoneman.
Stoneman is now focusing on reviving his F1 dream having resuming training and driving and he hopes to race again soon, having got the green signal from doctors treating him to do so.
“My goal this season is to go racing again. And hopefully go back to where I was at the end of last season,” Stoneman added.
The Wessex Cancer Trust Ambassador has been equally at ease racing on water.
Stoneman made the switch to powerboat racing this year - as he had cancer-related fitness issues to address - and emerged with top honours.
Stoneman claimed nine wins in the P1 SuperStock series this year.
“I am not new to powerboats racing. My father was a powerboat champion in 1985. Racing on road and on water is similar. You have the corners in both places. But racing a car demands the highest level of concentration,” he said. The peninsula
