Pol Espargaro 'locked the door' in all the overtaking areas as he rode on the limit to beat the factory Honda of triple MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo at the end of Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix.

But the KTM rider was so absorbed in the home battle that he made a fundamental error with the lap count, causing him to back-off one lap before the finish.

Espargaro surrendered over two-seconds before he realised the mistake, enough for Lorenzo to retake twelfth place.

"I misread my pitboard and I [eased off] one lap before the end of the race, so Lorenzo overtook me again," Espargaro confirmed. "This was one of the biggest mistakes in my career.

"I was so focussed and so on the limit that I was not thinking about anything else except that Jorge would not pass me back.

"I lost 2.5s [by backing off]. I should say that I had a problem with the bike if I was another rider but no, honestly, this was my mistake.

"It looks like I was not focused, but it was the opposite."

Espargaro confirmed that he has lap information on his dashboard as well as pitboard, but:

"On my dash it’s in a very small place and it doesn’t count down, it counts up. For sure it was 100% my mistake but in that moment it was so stressful, fighting against Honda was not normal and I needed to be on the limit.

"I was super angry with myself and sorry for the team because we could take one more point, but I was more angry because it was a factory Honda and fighting against them and beating them for once would have been good."

Despite the error Espargaro was again the top KTM rider, with factory team-mate Johann Zarco one place and six-seconds behind.