Brawn cools sabbatical speculation.

Ross Brawn has deflected rumours of him taking a sabbatical from Formula One in 2007, insisting that his decisions for the future will not be made public until the end of the year.

A rumour has circulated around the Hungarian Grand Prix paddock that Brawn will choose to take a year out at the end of this season. However, the Ferrari technical director side-stepped the question in Friday's press conference, claiming that this year's championship is first and foremost in their sights.

"We've said that we'll make the plans of the team, specifically the team, known at the end of the season and that's when we will make it clear what our plans are for the future and we certainly won't make any comment before then and will concentrate on trying to win this championship."

The speculation surrounding Brawn's future will no doubt have a knock-on effect on Michael Schumacher's decision to continue in a sport, plans he will not reveal until September's Italian Grand Prix.

Indeed, Brawn has masterminded all of Schumacher's seven world titles, five of which coming at the Ferrari team he joined ten years ago. With both Brawn and Schumacher closely associated, the actions of one is likely to have ramifications for the other.

Nonetheless, change is already occurring with the Scuderia as new team members step up to assume various roles, not least Aldo Costa, who now undertakes many of the designing duties once commandeered by Rory Byrne.

"I love the team. Ferrari is a fantastic team, a fantastic group of people," he said. "When you first go to a team, your first job is just to sort out the dramas. When I went to Ferrari, there were a lot of day to day things that needed to be put right. "When we got over those initial hurdles, then we had to start thinking about building for the future because none of us are going to be there forever.

"I think you've seen with Rory, who has been a great servant of Ferrari for the past few years, that we've successfully brought on his successor in Aldo Costa. We've had a very good evolution there and there's evolutions going on throughout the whole organisation. Formula One teams change shape and the shape of a team in the future may be different."

Team chief Jean Todt has also confirmed that he will be making an announcement concerning his future in the sport at the end of the year.