Valentino Rossi says he is not yet thinking about whether to stay at Ducati beyond 2012

The seven-time MotoGP champion failed to win a race in his first season with the Italian squad last year. Rossi said his preference was to continue in MotoGP beyond this season, and that ideally he hoped to take Ducati back to the top before leaving the sport.

"The scenario is that during the season everything will become interesting, because all riders have their contracts expiring, so cards can be shuffled," he said.

"Honestly I don't know [about the future]. I would like to be able to make Ducati go fast and be able to win something, and then perhaps even stop - to race for a few more years and achieve some good results this is perhaps my goal but there are many other possibilities, but not now.

"I would like to at least do another contract so would like to sign at least another two-year contract."

Rossi added that he did not want his 2013 deliberations to become a distraction from trying to improve Ducati's form in 2012.

"I think we are going to be speaking about the contract during the season, because we have to organise ourselves for 2013," he said. "I do not want to do it too soon because when you risk losing concentration on the championship as it is underway, but we will try and plan my future."

Although Rossi has long been linked to future in car racing or rallying, he said there were no firm plans for this at present, only ambitions for whenever he did decide to finish with MotoGP.

"I am a great fan of cars, and I had two occasions to try the Mercedes DTM in 2006," said Rossi. "It is a fantastic car, one of the nost fun cars I have ever driven, so I would love to do races in DTM - but these are projects to talk about when I finish motorbikes.

"For cars, I have no programmes apart from Monza Rally, but I tried GT3 in Mugello and I hope on some other occasions. I would also like to go to the old Nurburgring with an old Mercedes."