If one moment defines Nico Rosberg's 2016 world championship season, it deserves to be lap 20 of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Mercedes, whose drivers had both pitted, led comfortably but had failed to shake the chasing pack, with Lewis Hamilton not building much of a gap at the start and leaving Rosberg close to the clutches of Red Bull and Ferrari behind. At this point the top six were split by less than 10 seconds and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who had been flipped onto a one-stop strategy after his Turn 1 spin and was therefore yet to stop, sat between the Mercedes drivers.
Verstappen was due a pit stop but Rosberg was in danger of slipping back into Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo's battle. Ahead of lap 20, Mercedes told him it was now "critical" to get past the Red Bull driver -- Rosberg obliged. Catching the Red Bull down the backstraight, he dived down the inside of the second chicane, going wheel-to-wheel with the teenager. The pair were level coming out of the corner but Rosberg showed incredible poise and held firm, even as the Red Bull edged closer to his wheels.
The media centre collectively inhaled a breath as the two cars seemed to go through the second part of the chicane in slow-motion. After a moment where it looked like contact was imminent, Rosberg undercut the Dutch teenager on the exit, before powering past at the Turn 10 kink to move back into second.
Speaking afterwards, Rosberg hinted that it was one of the most stressful moments of his grand prix carer.
"That was a not a nice thing to do," he said of the overtake. "'It's critical to pass Verstappen' -- that's not a nice thing to hear, that was really bad, a horrible feeling...
"The feeling that I had right after I passed him I have never had that in a race car before in my life. I don't want it to happen again."
With his second pit-stop approaching, a series of fastest laps followed from Rosberg on laps 22, 23 and 24. As Rosberg made that second stop on lap 29 it looked like Mercedes was headed towards a routine one-two finish, and the German towards a maiden world championship. But Hamilton wasn't done there and soon his race tactic became clear -- back Rosberg up at every opportunity and hope the cars behind could spoil his teammate's race and season.
Rosberg and Mercedes seemed genuinely surprised Hamilton employed the tactic, but it was one predicted by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner ahead of the weekend. To become champion, Rosberg would have to withstand enormous pressure for ten laps knowing one mistake on the tight and twisty Yas Marina circuit -- renowned as one of the toughest on the calendar for overtaking -- could cost him his life's ambition.
While juggling the two cars getting closer and closer in his mirrors Rosberg admits he was also sceptical about how slow Hamilton would get.
"...The last ten laps as I could see them coming with what Lewis was doing and I didn't know how far he was going to push it. He could just go completely extreme and then made a right mess. I didn't know what to expect so that was also very, very tough."
Rosberg was faced with several options. Attack Hamilton and try and get clear of the danger, but at the risk of contact or a mistake, or let the faster Vettel through and take his chances against a Red Bull on the same tyre compound -- albeit a Red Bull driven by Verstappen, who had Rosberg's number on a couple of occasions this year. But after considering both, Rosberg decided his only option was to hold on for dear life.
When asked if he considered going for the lead, he said: "I couldn't, I was trying at times, but Lewis was driving really well. He pushed flatout from Turn 21 all the way through the first sector and halfway through the second sector and that is where you overtake so I was never getting close enough. He has the same car as me so in fast corners there was no way for me to get past and then he backed off in the next part where you can't overtake. There was no way for me.
"I had Sebastian Vettel behind so I wanted to try to hold on to second because once I drop one place to avoid a mess in front I knew Verstappen would be right behind so I didn't want that, with him right behind [me] either..."
Hamilton's tactic required Rosberg to make a mistake or crumble under the pressure from behind. The German did neither, turning in a faultless drive as good as any we saw this season -- exceptional given the circumstances and with everything to lose. In that regard it had shades of Jenson Button's drive at the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix, an assured, career-defining performance to silence the final doubters about his worthiness to win the world championship. There was no luck involved, just a demonstration of balls of steel from a man determined to seize his destiny and who has looked stronger and stronger since his win at the Belgian Grand Prix.
On the topic of luck, let's address that too. As Nico's father Keke pointed out after the race, no world champion has ever won a title without a bit of fortune. For all of Hamilton's engines woes this season, it is fair to argue the failures have evened out over the three years they've been in a dominant car -- Rosberg suffered a race-ending failure on the grid of the 2014 Singapore Grand Prix that helped Hamilton take the championship lead, while reliability issues on the No. 6 car in Italy and Russia the following year eased the Brit closer to a third championship. Felipe Massa might also have a thing or two to say about Hamilton and luck and 2008. It's all relative.
Even if they hadn't been evened out over three years, it's hard to know what Rosberg was supposed to do in those situations -- he can hardly be expected to pull over and allow the championship fight to reset itself. All he could do is maximise the job in front of him and so often this season he did. He had a mid-season lull and looked dead and buried at the summer break, but showed remarkable mental fortitude to come back and beat a man he himself rates as one of the all-time greats in Formula One.
After Hamilton's decisive penalty in Belgium, Rosberg stepped up a gear -- his win at Spa was routine, but faultless. In Italy he beat the slow-starting Hamilton off the line to win, before his dominant display in Singapore. Those three victories came before Hamilton's engine failure but built the foundations for what followed Sepang -- another decisive display in Japan, taking Hamilton's destiny out of his own hands and allowing Rosberg the luxury of four second-place finishes to wrap up the title.
If we are talking luck, fans of both drivers must consider the incredible unlikelihood and fortune in F1 -- just ask Fernando Alonso -- of having a dominant car for three years in a row, especially when Mercedes has spent that time period largely unchallenged out in front. All other arguments aside, Rosberg has proven a lot of people wrong this season and made many journalists -- including this writer -- eat their words about his ability to follow in his father's footsteps. How he got there is now largely irrelevant -- he seized the moment in fine style and will now forever hold the title 2016 world drivers' champion.