With the May 1 deadline for Bahrain's hopes of a 2011 Grand Prix looming, Bernie Ecclestone has said he is willing to extend it in the hopes that the unrest which has rocked the country for three months will settle down.

While the sport tried to look the other way as Bahrain became the latest country to witness 'civil unrest', eventually the decision to cancel the season opener was made for it, with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa personally cancelling the event.

The FIA subsequently announced the May 1 deadline in the hope that by then the situation might have improved, however, with days to go, according to various reports, including Pitpass' own sources in the country, the situation is worsening.

Nonetheless, clearly keen not to lose the race, Ecclestone has said that he is willing to extend the deadline.

"We need to wait a little bit to see exactly how progress is made," he told Reuters, admitting that the sport may yet need to say "bye-bye Bahrain".

"I suppose we'd be safe by early June or something like that," he continued. "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."