Japanese GP: Will Rosberg be penalised?

AT&T Williams driver Nico Rosberg would put in a strong performance that would see him finish fifth in the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix, but after the race finish concerns were raised as to whether he had broken the rules covering his lap times while the Safety Car was on the circuit. Nico had pitted while in the Safety car period and it was in this time that some believed that Nico had gained as much as four seconds on the track by going faster than allowed in his sector times.

In an interview for the BBC Nico spoke of how he felt that he gained no advantage from the Safety car period. Nico also spoke of how he is confident that he will not incur a 25-second penalty. If he did receive such a penalty he would drop outside the points and more importantly for some Brawn would then have the necessary points to secure the Constructors' Championship.

Rosberg said in an interview with told BBC Sport: "What I can say is that for sure I didn't gain an advantage ... we analysed everything and we didn't gain an advantage, so we need to see. They still want to analyse it, but it should be fine.

"They are up there discussing at the moment, so that's all I can say for now. But what they say is incorrect for sure." Nico was referring to comments made by Button.

Rosberg felt that he was not faster than the lap delta issued to drivers for each sector.

Nico added: "When the safety car comes out we have a lap delta, that comes into our steering wheel and we have to drive to that. There is a line just at the beginning of the pit entry and to ensure that we go slowly all the way back to the pits, slowly past the accident, we have to be exactly spot on for that minimum time.

"It says plus or minus and you just have to follow that and so long as you are in plus by the time you get to that line there then you are fine.

"As far as I am concerned I definitely did what I should do so I think it should be fine."

Later on Sam Michael, Team Manager Tim Newton, and Nico Rosberg weer seen entering Race Control room so it looked like some felt that the Williams team had a case to answer. It was going to take some time for a decision to be reached.