Brawn: Ferrari get priority in future plans

The former Ferrari technical director is currently on a sabbatical from F1, but several teams - including Honda - have already approached the Briton to try and secure his services for 2008.

Speaking for the first time since reports about those rival offers emerged, Brawn has made it clear that he wants to finalise whether he will return to Ferrari or not before he starts thinking about other options.

"To be frank I have had a few phone calls from different people and I've told them the same," Brawn told Autosport. "I won't enter any discussions with anybody until my situation is clear at Ferrari.

"I don't want to complicate this period of time away from the business. Once I know my position in July, if there is no solution at Ferrari and I do want to get back in, I'll see what opportunities are around."

Brawn has been travelling the world on his sabbatical, but recently visited his old team in Italy - where he agreed with CEO Jean Todt that they would sit down in a few months' time to discuss their future plans.

"I felt to have a proper break I didn't want to and I shouldn't have any discussions with anybody until July. My visit to see Jean was a friendly, personal one and in July we have agreed to sit down and chew the fat about how Ferrari's doing, how I'm doing and move on from there.

"I really wanted to stay away from it as much as I could for six months just to clear my mind. I have a lot of allegiances with Ferrari, there's no doubt.

"If we find a nice solution there, if we find something that they would like me to do and something that I would find a challenge, I would be delighted because they are a great group of people."

Brawn has already made it clear that he will not return to Ferrari as technical director. And although it was previously thought he would only be interested in the team principal's job, he has now hinted at taking on a restructuring role.

"My reasons for wanting to have a break were that I'd come to the end of a path with what I was doing at Ferrari," he said.

"It was still a very good job, but I'm not sure I'd just want to go back to what I was doing before. Plus other people have moved into that role and are clearly doing a very good job. It would be unfair for me to go back into that role.

"So it could be a different role within Ferrari or it could be a similar role I played at Ferrari when I arrived, which was a restructuring one. The thing you know in F1 is that there is only one team winning and the rest want to do something about it.

"It's inevitable that there are some teams in F1 who will be looking to strengthen their position, and you've got to look at whether they have got the resources and the commitment and the desire to do it, which was clearly there at Ferrari when I joined them.

"But I'd like to think we could find a solution at Ferrari because I was very happy there."

This week's Autosport features highlights of a Ross Brawn interview carried out at a Motorsport Industry Association dinner held at Woburn Abbey last week. Don't miss the Ferrari strategy guru's thoughts on 30 years in motorsport.