Dean Stoneman
GP3 Series, Sochi Autodrom
Dean Stoneman was, without a doubt, one of the biggest sensations of the 2014 GP3 season. Having been diagnosed with cancer after taking the 2011 F2 title, he was forced to withdraw from racing until last year. In 2013, he made his single-seater return in the final round of the 2013 edition of the series with Koiranen GP and immediately managed a maiden podium.
Pairing up with Manor for 2014, Stoneman picked up where he left off and took his maiden GP3 victory at Barcelona. He won at Spa-Francorchamps and at Monza, but was just eighth in the standings with two rounds to go.
For its penultimate round, GP3 followed F1 and GP2 to the first Russian GP in history at Sochi. Stoneman’s participation was suddenly in doubt when Marussia Manor had to withdraw due to commercial reasons, leaving the Briton without a seat. Not for long though, as his previous squad Koiranen GP gave Carmen Jorda?s car to Stoneman just a day before free practice.
Stoneman immediately gelled with the Finnish team once more, taking second in practice. He followed that with an impressive qualifying where he took his first GP3 pole, beating the whole field by nearly half a second.
Stoneman then completed a perfect Saturday with on a confident win. After a perfect getaway he controlled the race, beating everyone but Marvin Kirchhofer by five seconds or more.
The reverse-grid race two saw Stoneman start in eighth. The tough ask of making it to the podium from there was made harder by him being involved in an early incident.
Luckily for the Briton, he was able to continue in fifth and he soon passed championship leader Alex Lynn after the restart.
A safety car period in the final part of the race left the drivers with only two green flag laps to go. Stoneman quickly dispatched Jann Mardenborough for third and then caught up to Patric Niederhauser and Kirchhofer, who were battling it out for the win. A slightly ambitious manoeuvre from Kirchhofer allowed Stoneman to take second and he eventually came only 0.3s shy of Niederhauser and of becoming the second driver to win both races in a GP3 weekend.
His Sochi brilliance elevated him from eighth to second in the standings and left Stoneman as the only driver who could still mathematically challenge Lynn for the title. The fact he pulled off such a weekend after switching teams and on a new track added to just how mighty the performance was.
David Gruz