Formula One rights holder Bernie Ecclestone has insisted he is ready to give organisers of the postponed Bahrain Grand Prix more time to decide whether the race can take place later in the season.

In the wake of the political upheaval that caused the scheduled season-opener to be called off, motorsport’s governing body told Bahrain chiefs that they had until May 1 to confirm whether it would be able to stage a race later in the year. However, with the security situation in Bahrain still unpredictable, Ecclestone told Reuters that the Gulf state could be offered a few more weeks to decide.

“We need to wait a little bit to see exactly how progress is made,” Ecclestone said. “I suppose we'd be safe by early June or something like that. Things can change in a couple of weeks...so you don't know. All of a sudden everything might be peaceful in a month's time and they are happy to run the event and so we are happy to be there.”

Meanwhile Ecclestone has reiterated that there are no plans to sell F1 to a consortium led by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

“It (the speculation) is media driven,” he said. “It looks very much like someone who is trying to see if they can make (money). All of these people that get involved with these things, they get some victims and say, 'we can make this happen, I'm sure we can do this', and then all they do is keep pumping fees in.”

source: SportBusiness