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Fans supporting Michael Schumacher's recovery. (Getty Images)

Formula One champion Michael Schumacher is no longer in a medically induced coma, according to a French doctor who treated him following his skiing accident last December.

Jean-Francois Payen, the head at the anesthesiology department at Grenoble University, said that Schumacher is making progress and could recover within three years. Payen oversaw Schumacher for six months during his recovery.

“Life after a head injury is punctuated by stages,” he said to French outlet RTL. “He predicted a convalescence of one to three years. We hope but we have to give him time.” 

Schumacher was skiing in the French Alps last December with his son when he fell and hit his head on a rock. He was immediately life-flighted to a local hospital where he had two separate brain surgeries performed on him.

Just last month, Schumacher left a Lausanne hospital in Switzerland to return home and continue the rehabilitation process.