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Doctors battling to save the life of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher have no plans to wake him from the coma, it was claimed today.

The seven-times world champion has been in an artificially-induced coma after he suffered brain injuries in a French Alps ski-ing crash 26-days ago.

Neurosurgeons at the hospital in Grenoble where the 45-year-old race ace is being treated have still not revealed any date when they may try to bring him out of the coma.

And some experts fear he may remain in a permanent vegetative state for the rest of his life.

Authoritative German news magazine Focus reported today: “Fears grow for Schumi - still no date for an awakening.”

Schumacher is still classed as critically ill following the December 29 accident when he smashed his skull against a rock as he skied off-piste.

Although doctors, Schumacher’s family and management have imposed a total news blackout, medical experts have said the prognosis for a recovery so long after being on life-support machines does not bode well.

Schumacher was airlifted to hospital immediately after the accident and it was feared he would not last the night.

The medical intention of an induced coma is to decrease the brain’s need for oxygen to ease its workload and therefore give it time to recover.

But the longer the coma is induced the bleaker the chances become. Schumacher is now entering a fourth week.

Officially his condition remains “stable, but critical.”

Throughout last week, neurological experts at international medical conferences across Europe have speculated on his chances of recovery.

Their expertise over the length of the coma, coupled with the lack of information about his condition, led them to believe he remains desperately ill.

One report on an Austrian website said neuro specialists attending a conference in the German city of Hanover had made his condition a “central theme” of their discussions, with surgeons arguing that to go beyond eight days in an artificial coma was highly extraordinary.

Each day, the conference heard, presented other health risks.

It was the fear of a brain haemorrhage, if he is awoken, which has made his medical team keep him under.

Professor Andreas Schwartz, chief physician of the neurological clinic at the KRH Klinikum in Nordstadt, Vienna, said even if he wakes up, his memory could be “wiped out.”

Some experts went even further, speculating he might be in a permanent vegetative state for the rest of his life.

His wife Corinna, 44, and children Gina Marie, 16, and son Mick, 14, remain at his bedside hoping for the miracle that the rest of the world hopes for with them.