Brawn still undecided on future

Brawn has played a key role in Ferrari's recent run of world championship success with Michael Schumacher, and there have been suggestions that his future at the outfit depends heavily on whether the seven-time champion decides to stay on in F1 or not.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with this week's Autosport, Brawn said that a decision about his future would be taken this summer - although he saw little reason to want to leave.

"That's a topic of discussion," he said when asked about his plans beyond this year. "I don't want to work for another F1 team and I think we'll discuss my future again. But I'm very happy here and I want Ferrari to succeed in the future."

He added: "There are still some formal discussions to take place and they'll happen during the summer."

Brawn has said that even if he does decide not to continue with Ferrari, he will not just turn his back on the team. He wants to ensure that the outfit are left in a strong enough position to enjoy success without him.

"It's only correct that we have an evolution for the future, be it next year, be it two years' time, be it three years or whatever. We will all stop one day and it's important that we have a proper plan for the future.

"Our president demands that we have a succession plan in every key position in Ferrari.

"Ferrari have plans identified for what it's going to do in the future. I'm not going to elaborate on them, before you ask, but we have plans and that's correct. Every team should have."

And although Brawn has said he is undecided about his future, he has dropped a hint that his enthusiasm for the job has been rekindled by the team's difficulties over the last 18 months.

"Strangely enough, 2004 was probably a time when I was thinking, 'I've done everything now', but the failure of 2005 did give me a lot of fresh incentive," he explained.

"Sometimes failure can regenerate enthusiasm. The feeling I had after Bahrain, after coming so close to winning and not doing so, took me several days to recover from. I thought that gave me a message.

"We were two or three metres short and when you're that close it hurts."

Anthony Rowlinson's in-depth interview with Ross Brawn appears in this week's issue of Autosport magazine.