The "warrior" MotoGP rookie KTM was right to back

You'll be hard-pressed to find a bedroom wall anywhere in the world adorned with posters of 21-year-old Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider Iker Lecuona, and you'd be forgiven if his name perhaps slipped your mind when reflecting on the 2020 season.

In a campaign where nine riders won races and a total of 15 scored podiums, including two very high-profile debutants, Lecuona's humble haul of 27 points and three top 10 finishes appear to have little impact. But to dismiss his achievements last year would be wholly unfair if you consider his situation relative to that of fellow KTM rookie Brad Binder and Honda's Alex Marquez.

A double podium finisher in Moto2, Lecuona's call up to MotoGP at Tech3 came as something of a surprise. Johann Zarco's exit from the factory squad midway through 2019 necessitated KTM to find a replacement on short-notice, with Binder being plucked from his Tech3 slot after Miguel Oliveira elected to remain with Herve Poncharal's outfit.

"We had to make a quick decision and I spoke with them [KTM] and I told them 'if ever you can manage it inside the Red Bull KTM group, I would like to have Iker'," Poncharal tells Autosport.

"And everyone was a bit sceptical because they told me 'he's only 19, we think another year in Moto2 would be really good'. And I pushed, I pushed because I was disappointed to have lost Brad. I didn't want to have another regular replacement guy in MotoGP who was going to do nothing exciting. That was really my choice."

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Poncharal is a champion of youth in MotoGP, bringing onboard the likes of Pol Espargaro, Bradley Smith, Zarco, Jonas Folger and Hafizh Syahrin in recent years. But the scepticism his desire to promote Lecuona courted wasn't unjust.

By the time he'd made his MotoGP debut with Tech3 as Oliveira's injury stand-in at the 2019 Valencia GP, Lecuona's circuit racing experience was extremely limited. Having cut his teeth on supermotard machinery, his first shot on a proper 600cc production bike came in 2015. In 2016, he was drafted in at the Interwetten squad in Moto2 as a late-season replacement before remaining full-time in the class from 2017.

That meant when he lined up on the grid for last July's season-opening Spanish GP, he had started some 89 fewer grands prix than Binder and 79 fewer than Marquez - both of whom were world champions at Moto3 level, with the latter also claiming the 2019 Moto2 world title.

The opening three rounds of 2020 exposed this lack of experience in a big way. Lecuona didn't get to the finish of the Spanish GP, the crippling Andalusian heat causing him physical issues and forcing him to retire, while he suffered crashes in the second Jerez race and the Czech GP. This came on the backdrop of Binder showing podium pace in the Jerez races before taking a sensational maiden win at Brno, with Marquez scoring solid points on the difficult Honda.

"The Valencia race [in 2019] gave him the feeling that it was easier than what he was expecting, and in fact when he started racing in 2020 he touched the reality and to do a fast lap is different than to do a whole MotoGP race distance," Poncharal comments. "Also, we've been pushing because we saw him at the Sepang test not really fit enough - because the Valencia replacement he did gave him the feeling it was so easy."

Poncharal concedes Lecuona's early season wasn't helped by the performances of his fellow rookies and feels the then-20-year-old "wanted to do good too quickly". But that in itself highlighted why Poncharal wanted him in the first place: "Iker is a warrior, and he didn't want to give up," the Tech3 boss says. But it was clear this warrior spirit needed to be tempered by reality, and after the Czech GP Lecuona began to accept he simply couldn't keep comparing himself to Binder or Marquez.

"It's easier to have a fast rider and let him understand what to do to crash less, than a slow rider who is not crashing to give the results" Herve Poncharal

"I tried to fight with these two riders, but in this case it's more difficult for me because I don't have the same experience," Lecuona tells Autosport. "Brad is world champion in Moto3, also Alex won the world championship in Moto2, Brad finished second. So, they had a lot of experience. I know I can go fast, I know I have the potential, but in this moment I know it was difficult to fight with them. So, in this moment I finished comparing with both riders and from this moment was when the performance started to come.

"When I finished comparing, I started to enjoy, I started to work with the team, start to understand many things with this bike because this bike is very difficult to manage with the electronics and the power."

It would be easy to misinterpret this as cowering from a fight, but Lecuona wilfully concedes "going to MotoGP was too early given my experience". So, in the battle for rookie of the year in 2020, he didn't even have a knife handy for that particular gunfight. But Lecuona was never a short-term solution for KTM or for Tech3. In the off-season, KTM renewed his contract for 2021 and in those tough early races the Austrian marque's management remained a voice of reassurance for Poncharal.

"When he was crashing during the first races, together with the KTM guys they were always coming to see me to tell me don't worry," the Frenchman notes. "They were telling me it's easier to have a fast rider and let him understand what to do to crash less, than a slow rider who is not crashing, to give the results."

And once Lecuona made that mental breakthrough and began working better with his team, the results were immediate. In the Austrian GP he scored his first top 10 with a fine ride to ninth, backing that up with 10th the following weekend at the Styrian GP.

But just as he was beginning to find his feet, events off-track once again mounted unnecessary pressure on his shoulders. Andrea Dovizioso's split from Ducati led to rumours quickly swirling in the paddock he could rejoin Tech3 for 2021 - having enjoyed a productive 2012 campaign on its Yamaha - with KTM moving Lecuona back into Moto2.

It wouldn't have been hard to understand if KTM had elected to sign the 15-time MotoGP race-winner. But, showing its belief in Lecuona as a star of the future, Poncharal insists such a move was never entertained.

"I told him it doesn't matter about Andrea," Poncharal says. "Andrea spoke with KTM during the winter and they didn't manage to find an agreement. But then in August they were coming to me and I told everybody and the journalists, it's a lack of respect [these rumours]. I'm telling you we have a contract signed with Iker and why should we tell him to go back to Moto2?

"Riders are not toilet paper that you take and throw away. We took him from Moto2, we took a big risk because it would have been easier to keep [him] in Moto2 one more year to try to win races and why not the championship, then move to MotoGP. So, he followed us, he trusted us and after a year where he started to show his potential, we tell him to go back to Moto2? Never! That would never happen with me and I am not glad that didn't happen because it was never going to happen."

MotoGP is very much in the throes of a changing of the guard, with youth leading the charge - as evidenced by Ducati's replacements for Dovizioso being Jack Miller (26) and Francesco Bagnaia (24). As Poncharal notes, "if you are a team manager you need to bet on the future, which is to go with young riders". And it appears KTM's bet on Lecuona is really beginning to pay off.

During the Aragon GP, KTM struggled in the lower temperatures. For the following Teruel GP at the same venue, Tech3 ran with a different base set-up for Lecuona. Sailing straight into Q2 for the first time, he went on to score another ninth-place finish. But more significantly, it was the set-up direction Lecuona had gone with that allowed factory KTM rider Pol Espargaro to vault himself to fourth in the race - a result he acknowledged his young compatriot for. This proved to be the defining moment of Lecuona's season.

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"It's true the P4 for Pol like he said, part of this P4 was for me because he used my base," Lecuona says. "He tried it and he improved a lot. For me it's a good feeling, because I'm a rookie, I'm the last KTM, but the official riders used my base. So, I'm the last KTM but finally I'm faster and everybody knew."

Asked by Autosport if this was where he finally felt like a proper MotoGP rider, he responded: "Yeah, honestly yeah because in the first week in Aragon the four KTMs struggled a lot, but the four KTMs are very close in the race. Brad, Pol close and me and Miguel, all the race the four KTMs were close.

"When I finished comparing [myself to Binder and Marquez], I started to enjoy, I started to work with the team, start to understand many things with this bike" Iker Lecuona

"In the second week, when you are the first KTM and your pace is the best one and just I worked with the team to manage this situation. For your mind it's very important because you take a lot of confidence in yourself."

Lecuona's whirlwind debut campaign ended prematurely, a positive COVID-19 diagnosis ruling him out of the final three rounds - much to both his and Tech3's disappointment, as both are convinced his Valencia homecoming would have produced something special.

By contrast to those of Fabio Quartararo in 2019, Binder and Alex Marquez, Lecuona's debut season wasn't what you would call spectacular. But by no means was it terrible. Modern day MotoGP is one of the toughest challenges in motorsport, a matter of a tenth the difference between a comfortable place in the top 10 in qualifying or a mid-pack mountain to climb.

To stand out is difficult, but in a very understated way that's exactly what Lecuona did in 2020. His top 10 runs in the Austrian double-header and the Teruel GP were flashes of genuine potential, results shaped by the hardships he had to face in his first year in the premier class.

"I can tell you, when KTM engineers check his data, they are very happy with him and we all believe he's gonna be a really strong MotoGP rider in the near future," Poncharal enthuses.

So far, the belief instilled in Lecuona has been repaid, but he faces a new challenge in 2021. The RC16 is a proven, multiple race-winner and Tech3 is now a proven double race-winner courtesy of factory team-bound Oliveira. And alongside Lecuona this year will be proven double race-winner Danilo Petrucci, armed with vast experience.

Lecuona will need to step up in a big way, but how he traversed the hurdles placed in front of him in his debut campaign have gone a long way to prove Poncharal's "warrior" is moulding into a serious MotoGP contender.

"I'm quite sure Iker will like to share [a garage] with Danilo because they have a lot of common values together," Poncharal concludes. "But believe me, Iker will kick Danilo's ass. Danilo's got to push!"