With Jean Todt promoted to the role of Managing Director there has inevitably been conjecture that Ross Brawn might be promoted to become team principal. Ahead of the United States GP, the Englishman took time out to explain the situation.

"I think with Jean's new role as the boss of Ferrari, then, of course, there was naturally speculation about what would happen below him," said Brawn. "Jean's taken responsibility for the road car side as well as the racing car side. For us, that's a very good thing, because with our president's extra commitments, both in the Fiat group and Confindustria, it was clear that Luca Di Montezemolo would not be able to devote as much time to Ferrari as he had been in the past.

"Therefore, there was a hole appearing, particularly with the road car group and the options were to fill that with someone new or to try and make some adjustments internally. I think it's much better to try and make adjustments internally. I think Jean deserved the position, I think he's shown as a boss of Ferrari racing that he's a very capable guy, so I think he deserved the position. From my perspective, it means we have someone in charge of Ferrari who I know and respect and can work with.

"So it's a very good thing for us in racing," he continued. "There is no change in the position of team principal, Jean will still hold that. But myself, Stefano Domenicali, Nigel Stepney, several people at the factory will be taking on extra responsibility to cover some of the areas which Jean is no longer responsible for. I must say I enjoy the engineering, I enjoy the racing side and I don't want things to interfere with that too much. I went to a team principals' meeting, I think, in Nurburgring or one of the earlier races and talked about qualifying, and it occupied three or four hours on a Saturday afternoon. Well, I simply don't have that time at the moment, at least. So it's important that I don't get too distracted from what I'm here for and what I actually enjoy doing. But we're all going to merge, we're all going to move a little bit, we're all going to take on some extra responsibilities to cover the hole that Jean's left in some respects, but Jean will always be there on the racing side as a team principal. So I don't think it's going to change very much, and we're pleased about that because I don't want to have to work for someone else."