So abrupt was Nico Rosberg’s exit from Formula One, and so startling to the sport that had consumed his life, that a sense of rootlessness was to be expected. Two years down the road from his stunningly early retirement, he reflects how, in the immediate aftermath, he felt all but devoid of direction.

“The more you are in the public eye, the more difficult it becomes,” says the German, now an eco-entrepreneur and still the only man since 2013 to have beaten Lewis Hamilton to the world title. “If you were to stop your job tomorrow and become a cook, that would be a serious break. You would have moments thinking, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’ You lose your identity in a way.”

One moment, Rosberg was winning seven straight races en route to the dethroning of his childhood nemesis. The next, he was walking away for good, a one-and-done champion, his coronation in Abu Dhabi in 2016 his final competitive moments in an F1 car. He craved, it seemed, a quieter existence, swapping the razzle-dazzle of the paddock for a spell helping his wife Vivian run an ice-cream parlour in Ibiza. It was, he discovered, a disorientating change of pace.