GRENOBLE, April 4- Michael Schumacher has “moments of consciousness and awakening”, his spokeswoman said Friday, in a sign of progress months after the Formula One legend suffered a devastating ski accident in France.
“Michael is making progress…. He shows moments of consciousness and awakening,” Sabine Kehm said in a statement.
Doctors put Schumacher in a medically induced coma after the December 29 accident in which he hit his head on a rock while skiing at the French resort of Meribel with his son and a group of friends.
He remains in hospital in the French Alpine city of Grenoble and little has filtered out about his condition, though his family said on January 30 that drugs used to keep him in a coma were being reduced with a view to bringing him back to consciousness.
“We are on his side during his long and difficult fight, together with the team of the hospital in Grenoble, and we keep remaining confident,” Kehm said.
Meanwhile, World champion Sebastian Vettel admitted Thursday he was braced for another weekend of Mercedes domination at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The German driver, who has seen Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton sweep to opening wins in Australia and Malaysia in the dominant Mercedes, believes the Sakhir circuit will also suit his rivals.
“Here the track is a quite tricky one, as you have got a lot of straights, and therefore we have got to save quite a lot of fuel on Sunday compared to Malaysia,” said four-time world champion Vettel.
“And already in testing, and for sure at the first two races, we have seen that Mercedes has the strongest package. They are way quicker than us on the straights, so it will be difficult to keep up with them.”
Mercedes set two of the three quickest times in testing at the Gulf track last month while Vettel was down in 18th and teammate Daniel Ricciardo made 10th.
The Red Bull men were two seconds and four seconds slower than the Mercedes pair respectively in that winter test.