Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg of Germany celebrates with his wife Vivian Sibold holding a German flag in the team garage after winning the F1 2016 Championship. Photo / AP.
Not since Eric Cantona, just short of his 31st birthday, announced that he was quitting football, has a sporting retirement landed so loudly as a bomb coming out of a clear sky.
Nico Rosberg, himself 31, has performed the trick that is beyond the contemplation of most of the hard-wired
folk who participate in high-stakes games - he has walked out at the crowning moment of his career, at a time of his choosing.
Nobody had remotely suggested that he might quit at this point. It was nothing much to do with the fact he may have turned his back on something like £100million - five years at approximately £20million a year (his current contract is worth £18.3m all bonuses told). It was a case of why would he? That he would carry on seemed so obvious that the question was never asked.
The mood at Mercedes was one of shock when the news came on Friday afternoon.
His statement via social media amounted to the most incendiary thing he has ever done in a career that operated along Teutonic lines of perfection - a quiet life, unrelenting graft, a dedication to analysis of engineering data.
He also revealed a lot about himself in his parting words: that he had found the sheer tension of fighting for the title, which he won in Abu Dhabi just five days ago, almost crippling.
