Ferrari has described its “overwhelming joy”,

F1 champion Michael Schumacher has left hospital in Grenoble and is no longer in a coma, his family says.

The 45-year-old has been transferred to Lausanne university hospital in Switzerland, officials there say.

Schumacher was placed in a medically induced coma after suffering a severe head injury in a skiing accident in the French Alps on 29 December.

His family thanked people who had sent messages of support, saying: “We are sure it helped him.”

They also praised the “excellent job” of medical staff at the hospital in Grenoble, in south-east France.

Doctors had kept the seven-time champion in a coma to help reduce swelling in his brain.

Michael Schumacher had been treated at Grenoble’s University Hospital Centre in the French Alps

“Michael has left the CHU Grenoble to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. He is not in a coma anymore,” Schumacher’s manager, Sabine Kehm, said in a statement on behalf of his family on Monday.

“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.

Relatives have previously warned that “it was clear from the start that this will be a long and hard fight for Michael”.

The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the university hospital in Lausanne is one of Switzerland’s most renowned hospitals, with all the expertise a patient would need.

But it is not clear what Schumacher’s condition is and his process of recovery is still expected to be a long one, our correspondent adds.

Monday’s statement was the first substantial update since early April when Ms Kehm said the German racing driver was showing “moments of consciousness and awakening.”

original story taken from the BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27868787