Exclusive Graeme Lowdon Q&A: Marussia Sporting Director on engines, appeals & 2014

After a curtain raiser to the 2014 season which threw up no end of talking points, Sky Sports Online sat down with Marussia Sporting Director Graeme Lowdon to discuss the matters of the moment as well as his own team's mixed fortunes in Melbourne.

"For all there were various issues and problems, and certainly we experienced some circumstances on the fuel flow where we had to make some decisions, I think most of the teams made those decisions in accordance with how the FIA thought the teams would act, which is to err on the side of ensuring that your car is safe and legal at all times, which is the stipulation that's in the Sporting Regulations. I know whenever we were presented with a decision to make we took it into accordance with the guidelines that have been issued with the FIA." Red Bull are obviously pushing ahead with their appeal and there's been some talk that this kind of technical issue with the new regulations could dominate the season, resulting in more post-race disqualifications. Is there a worry that due to the complexity of the rules there could be a lot of challenges to the FIA, particularly if Red Bull win their case?
GL: "I certainly hope not because the fans don't like that. They want to switch on, watch a race and then know who's won it and not have to stay up another day or something like that to find out who actually won or who came second or whatever. So I certainly hope we don't have that kind of thing. "Obviously the International Court of Appeal is the final arbiter on these things, so there is a process which is well laid out. My own view is, and it's purely a personal view, that it would open the floodgates to all sorts of things if this appeal were to be successful because, yes, the ICA is the final arbiter, opinions given by the FIA outside of the Technical Regulations are meant for guidance and they are guidance, it doesn't constitute part of the Technical Regulations as such, but I think some things should be reasonably straightforward. "If Red Bull chose to ignore the guideline from the FIA then they will have only done that to make their car go quicker - there's no reason why they would have done anything other than that. Therefore if that was the approach that every single team took then without any question every single result would always be decided in the International Court of Appeal, and that's not really what it's meant for and it wouldn't be good for the fans and, you'd argue, it wouldn't be good for the sport." We've seen plenty of examples over the years where a key result has been overturned several hours after the end of the race. In this latest case the stewards were dealing with complex issues, would it be possible to have more instant judgement?
GL: "That's why we have this system where the FIA give their opinion. It happens on things all the time. We seek Charlie Whiting's opinion on a lot of things and he gives it and I think there's a general view that it's good for the teams to follow that advice, even though it might not necessarily constitute a part of the Technical Regulations. "It is an opinion and if we were just to ignore all of those opinions and constantly test them in a court then the sport would just stutter along endlessly. From what I understand, a number of teams were given advice by the FIA on what they should do with regard to fuel consumption and I think most of them followed it. It really is going to be difficult for the sport to operate races in a way that the fans are really going to understand if the advice is simply ignored because you can make a car go quicker. "It's not good for Daniel [Ricciardo] either. He drove pretty well but the