Ahead of this weekend’s season finale, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, I’ve been thinking how Nico Rosberg got into the position he is currently in.
The German is the overwhelming favourite to leave the Yas Marina Circuit on Sunday as world champion for the first time.
He has a 12-point lead over Lewis Hamilton and only needs to finish on the podium in the title decider, some he has only not done twice in the last 11 races, to achieve his career-long dream.
Looking back, most have pointed to Hamilton’s smorgasbord of mechanical failures and niggles that allowed Rosberg to capitalise, but, in reality, his recent period of success expands beyond the events of this year.
In 2015, Hamilton was unstoppable. No matter what Rosberg tried it was impossible for him to beat his teammate. It was even a mistake by Nico, with Lewis closing in on him, that gifted the world title to the Briton at the United States Grand Prix.
Hamilton had finally done what most had thought he would, and imposed himself as the clear number one at Mercedes. Surely, in the best form of his life and as a three-time world champion, Rosberg would never beat Hamilton in a straight fight at the same team.
Yet here we are just over 12 months on, and at times, you would have thought Nico was the one who won the title last year and Lewis was the man with no response.
So what happened? Well, inadvertently, Hamilton let his guard down, celebrated his third title as only he can and that slight drop in performance allowed Rosberg to claim three victories to round off 2015.
In doing so, those victories let the German get over the disappointment of losing the world title and helped him regain the belief that he could beat Lewis Hamilton. The aura that had been created throughout last year, was gone in three races.
For 2016, most, I included, thought that back in the cauldron of a live title fight, Hamilton would return to the form he had pre-Austin and instead he might have to worry about a resurgent Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari.
Back at full focus, surely, beating Nico Rosberg would be as easy as he made it look for much of the previous season.
However, it was the 31-year-old, with a renewed sense of self-belief, who maintained the advantage he had in those final three races and it was Hamilton who couldn’t find an answer.
Sure, there was a little luck involved, but Rosberg was worthy of the four wins he had to begin this season, to claim the early advantage, and put pressure on Lewis to do the catching.
When he finally rekindled his 2015 form in Monaco, he would carry it throughout the summer and not only catch Rosberg but build up a 19-point lead heading into the August break.
The Belgian Grand Prix was always likely to be a difficult race for Hamilton, as he had to restock on engines, but victory at Spa was as much about a re-focused Rosberg as it was his teammate’s issues.
It showed again when he capitalised on Lewis’ poor start at Monza to take another win.
Back in the driving seat, after engine failure robbed Hamilton victory in Malaysia, only the Briton in desperation mode has given him the speed advantage and claim three straight wins since Sepang.
But it has also been Rosberg realising he only needed to finish second in those races that meant he wasn’t in full attack mode.
That is how the current position was reached but it may not have been this way if Hamilton had only drilled home his advantage in those final races last year.
Sure, he had the right to celebrate his title and what has happened since was an unintended consequence, but if Lewis had stayed fully focused and perhaps not become a little complacent, it would have been very hard for Rosberg to find the belief that has allowed him to not only succeed but also put him on the brink of becoming F1 champion.
