Kimi Räikkönen has paid for the races he has run for Kyle Busch Motorsports and does not owe the team money, KBM general manager Rick Ren said Saturday.The question over whether Räikkönen had paid for his races was raised Thursday after team owner Kyle Busch said that the original plan of doing three to five Camping World Truck Series events with Raikkonen had changed because Raikkonen had not yet paid for future events.
"What's changed is the payment schedule,” Busch said Thursday. “The contract states that we're supposed to receive so much and we have not. We've only received enough for these two races.
“It's either up to Kimi or up to the financial people that run Kimi's business side of things and decide that they need to find the sponsorship funds in order to carry the experience for him further."
Those comments were interpreted that the former Formula One champion might still owe Busch money. Ren said prior to Räikkönen’s Nationwide Series debut Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway that that is not the case.
“Reports circulating that Kimi has not paid for the races he is running at KBM are untrue,” Ren said. “As Kyle Indicated Thursday, we have received payments from Kimi for both last week’s truck race and today’s Nationwide Series race.
“When Kyle stated that the payment schedule has changed, he was referring to plans for future truck races for Kimi at KBM.”
Ren reiterated there is no disagreement between KBM and Räikkönen’s management over payments.
“Since the original announcement, the plan changed and all parties agreed to take the funding for future truck races and put it towards running today’s Nationwide Series race,” Ren said. “After today’s race, if Kimi is interested in running more NASCAR events this year, we’ll be happy to discuss that with him.”
Source: Nascar.SpeedTV
