How Rosberg 'messed with Lewis's head'

With more than a hint of reverence, Nico Rosberg reaches out to touch his championship-winning W07 Hybrid affectionately on the nose, then turns to regard the grand sweep that is the cavernous concrete inner sanctum of the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Here, like pinned butterflies in a natural-history exhibit, but on a grander scale, the racing cars attached to the banked wall bear silent testament to an evolutionary line - in this case, one that stretches from chain-driven pre-war leviathans such as the 1909 Blitzen Benz to the latest hybrid Formula 1 machinery.

A large red crane stands ready to hoist Nico's title-winner onto its final resting place - but not before its operators have posed for a selfie with both him and it. He obliges with the same easy charm that defused many a sticky moment during his driving career, as last year when he led a potentially hostile Monza crowd in an impromptu sing-along - in Italian - having led a Mercedes one-two that pegged their beloved Ferraris into third and fourth places.