Kimi Räikkönen, Formula One driver for the Lotus F1 Team and everyone's favorite eccentric mumbler, will have back surgery this week, according to Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat via Sky Sports. That means no US Grand Prix or Brazil Grand Prix for the Iceman. Poor guy.
Räikkönen's back injury is nothing new, according to the report, and it was aggravated back in Singapore. Not sure what made him still try to go through with Abu Dhabi, but there is, ya know, the fact that he hasn't gotten paid all season. So there's that. He actually even warned of such a scenario last week, again via Sky Sports:
Asked if he could sit out the forthcoming races in America and Brazil if those issues are not resolved, Raikkonen bluntly warned: "Yes, for sure. I enjoy racing, I enjoy driving but a big part of it is business and sometimes when that's not dealt with like it should we end up in an unfortunate situation. But we have to put the line sometime and if it goes over that it's not really my fault anymore.
I guess when you're not getting paid and Sebastian Vettel's already won the championship and you're driving for Ferrari next year and I hear they pay so it's like, whatever, already, at this point, the season-ending-back-surgery-thing starts to make a lot more sense.
Here's to 2014, then.
Photo via Getty
H/t to ncasolo!