Pol Espargaro 'part owes' Teruel GP fourth to MotoGP rookie Lecuona

Espargaro branded KTM's Aragon GP weekend as "painful" as all four factory RC16 riders struggled in the cooler conditions.

KTM started the Teruel GP weekend with Espargaro, Brad Binder plus Tech3 duo Lecuona and Miguel Oliveira using different set-ups to try and find a better direction to follow.

Espargaro, Oliveira and Lecuona made it straight into Q2 from FP3, with Espargaro going on to secure his best result since the Emilia Romagna GP in fourth in race.

The Spaniard says "Tech3 helped us a lot" during the Teruel weekend and was swayed into using Lecuona's settings after the rookie finished sixth in FP3 on Saturday.

"This weekend we have tested many things, moving away from our set-up," Espargaro explained. "Tech3 helped us a lot. Both Miguel and Lecuona were very solid during the weekend.

"Iker worked very well and we actually used his set-up.

"In the third free practice he finished very high and that's why I asked that they give it to me as much as possible. This fourth place, in part I owe it to him."

Lecuona equalled his best result of the year from the Austrian GP in ninth, but felt he could have finished closer to the front than the 17.7 seconds from the lead that he did.

"I'm really happy. It's the first time I fight with the top guys, with [Andrea] Dovizioso, [Danilo] Petrucci, also with Aleix [Espargaro], we fight a lot," Lecuona said.

"I had some mistakes, when I overtook Aleix for the last time I had a big mistake in Turn 12 and I go off of the track.

"So, I lose close to two seconds and I needed to recover again this gap. Lap by lap I felt quite strong and I can recover a lot of time.

"After the fight with Dovi and Petrucci, I felt it was possible to finish more in front.

"But finally, I'm happy about my race because I learned a lot this week compared to last week, also this week with the electronic plans I learned a lot. So, in general I'm very happy."