Nico Rosberg issues 'forever grateful' Max Verstappen message: '50-50 chance of a crash'

Nico Rosberg has revealed he feared a race-ending crash with Max Verstappen during the title-deciding 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, admitting he is "forever grateful" to the Dutchman for racing fairly when stuck behind him.

Rosberg needed only to finish in the top three at Yas Marina to clinch his maiden world championship, but Lewis Hamilton's late-race tactic of backing the field up towards Sebastian Vettel and Verstappen turned a straightforward afternoon into a nerve-shredding ordeal.

The German, then racing for Mercedes, found himself boxed in directly behind Verstappen's Red Bull with his title hopes suddenly hanging by a thread, as Hamilton's strategy of deliberately slowing the pack began to bite.

Speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast, Rosberg described the moment his race engineer Tony Ross delivered the instruction that changed everything.

"Ah, horrible, horrible," began Rosberg, discussing Hamilton backing up the pack. "Yeah, he was unfolding his strategy, and it was working. It was working perfectly. He put me behind Max Verstappen with that strategy. 

"I should never have been behind Max Verstappen, and suddenly I'm behind Max Verstappen, the worst guy to be behind. It was Mad Max at the time. It was a 50-50 chance of a crash if you ever tried to pass him or whatever. 50-50. 

"So Lewis, it was working. His strategy was working. Yeah. And understandably, he has to do something. So he tries something, and it was working. 

"And then probably the most extreme moment in my whole career is when Tony Ross, who I'm so grateful for because I have my whole career to kind of thank him for, I did every year except for one with him as my engineer, and there are many people to thank, but Tony Ross would be one, comes on the radio and says, 'Nico, your championship is at risk. You need to now pass Max Verstappen in the next two laps.' 

"What? You don't pass Max Verstappen. Like, it's not something you do. Your championship is at risk. Like, what is that? Where does that come from?"

Nico Rosberg recalls suffering 'uncontrollable' foot shaking

Rosberg did find a way past, pulling off the overtake that effectively sealed the 2016 drivers' championship, with Verstappen eventually finishing fourth behind race winner Hamilton, Vettel and the German.

Nearly a decade on, Rosberg says the manner in which Verstappen defended still sticks with him, crediting the now four-time champion for racing him cleanly in one of the tensest moments of his career.

"Amazing move, and forever thankful to Max because he played it fairly, left the space," added Rosberg. "Forever grateful, like, amazing. Thank you so much, forever. 

"And then I come out of that, and my next thought, I think you can start to realise that there was quite an intensity mentally going on here, so then I come out of that, and my foot starts shaking so much from fear and adrenaline that I'm uncontrollable on the throttle pedal. 

"I'll never have that in my life again. I'll never experience that. I'd never had it before. The foot goes uncontrollable, jumping. The whole foot is jumping from adrenaline, from Max."