Schumacher's wife 'believes he's getting better'

The wife of Michael Schumacher believes the former Formula One champion is getting better after emerging from his coma and being moved to a Swiss hospital last month, she told a German magazine.

In her first public comments since Schumacher's horrific ski accident on December 29, 2013, Corinna Schumacher told Neue Post that the improvement in the health of her famous husband was encouraging.

"It's getting better, slowly certainly, but in any case it's improving," she told the women's weekly while she was watching a horse-riding tournament.

Michael Schumacher, 45, spent 170 days in hospital in the French city of Grenoble after cracking his skull on a rock while skiing in an Alpine resort. Almost all of that time he was in a coma, and lost a lot of weight.

After finally being coaxed back to consciousness, the seven-time world champion was on June 16 flown to a hospital in the Swiss city of Lausanne that specialises in care for brain injuries.