Nico Rosberg, who retired on Friday, will be remembered in Formula One as the cool, calm and collected driver who doggedly overcame a brilliant teammate to win a world title.
Rosberg’s shock decision to swap driving in the fast lane for helping in his wife’s ice-cream parlour in Ibiza came only five days after he claimed his maiden drivers’ crown.
His skill behind the wheel of the all-conquering Mercedes Silver Arrow was undoubted.
But he also went to a Japanese Zen master in Kyoto to hone his powers of meditation.
“In simple terms, the idea was to work on the full consciousness,” Rosberg disclosed to German daily Der Spiegel on Friday making his stunning retirement public.
“You take the time to relax and to concentrate on your feelings. You learn to accept your emotions, including negative emotions like anger and worry.”
There’s been plenty of that over the past few seasons as his teenage friendship with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton degenerated into all-out war.
Yet such is the respect the pair hold for each other — albeit well masked at times — Rosberg revealed he had personally broken the news of his retirement to Hamilton.
The duo’s rivalry gave F1 a much needed shot of adrenalin at a time when Mercedes’ domination threatened to send fans to sleep.
Whilst relations were often tense with Hamilton, they were also fraught with another former teammate, legendary seven-world world champion Michael Schumacher.
“When I arrived (at Mercedes) he was, in inverted commas, bigger than God,” Rosberg said.
Despite losing to Hamilton in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, his overall triumph against the Briton reflected his refusal to give up, a relentless competitiveness and a cerebral attention to detail.
It also enabled Rosberg to exorcise the demons that appeared to overshadow his intense competition with Hamilton, a relationship which dates back to teenage karting days as team-mates, room-mates and rivals. It has exploded with collisions and off-track acrimony in the last four years.
In many ways, Rosberg’s success — and his identity as a champion — has been defined by his relationship, and differences, with Hamilton.
Far from having an easy life due to inherited wealth and privilege, he has, like Hamilton, always had a sense that he has much to prove.
“My mum grew up after the war in Germany and she used to take cigarettes from the floor and smoke the last bit left by American soldiers. They had nothing. She grew up like that.”
Rosberg began karting aged six. He and Hamilton met as rivals in 1997 and became teammates in 2000.
In 2002, he moved to the German Formula BMW championship and won the title.
His rise was a season ahead of Hamilton’s parallel ascent of motor racing’s ladder. As teenage rivals, both dreamt and laughed at the prospect of racing for the F1 world title.
But having finally reached the pinnacle, Rosberg can now sit back and relax, leaving the others to battle it out in the cut-throat world of Formula One racing.

His skill behind the wheel of the all-conquering Mercedes Silver Arrow was undoubted