Formula One ex-champion Michael Schumacher, who sustained severe head injuries in a ski accident in late 2013, is no longer in a coma and has left the French hospital where he was being treated since the accident, his spokeswoman said on Monday.

"Michael has left the CHU Grenoble (hospital) to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. He is not in a coma anymore," said a statement from spokeswoman Sabina Kehm.

"His family would like to explicitly thank all his treating doctors, nurses and therapists in Grenoble as well as the first aiders at the place of the accident, who did an excellent job in those first months.

 "For the future, we ask for understanding that his further rehabilitation will take place away from the public eye," she said, without giving further details about his condition.

Schumacher has been transferred to the University Hospital of Lausanne, the Swiss hospital confirmed on Monday.

The spokesperson declined to say what unit Schumacher, who lives with his family in a town between Lausanne and Geneva, was being treated in, citing medical secrecy and family privacy.

Schumacher slammed his head on a rock while skiing in the French resort of Meribel in December and was put in a medically induced coma after undergoing brain surgery at the hospital in the Alpine city of Grenoble.

His family said at the end of January that drugs used to keep the 45-year-old in his deep sleep were being reduced to bring him back to consciousness, but little had filtered out about his condition since then.

Agencies