Even if it is a sprint race win and not the full race win, Vinales also brings to an end Ducati’s 19-race win streak.

The ‘Top Gun’ was fast from Friday and was looking like a step above the rest of the Aprilias. In the Sprint, Vinales maintained a decent position in the earlier laps, despite dropping a couple of places due to making a mistake at the start and knowing Aprilia’s weakness at the launch.

The Spaniard, after a couple of passes, found himself in third place before benefiting from Marquez’s mistake on turn 5 to move up to second place.

Vinales then started amping up the pressure on the race leader, Francesco Bagnaia who at one point was over a second clear of the Aprilia man, but Vinales brought the gap down to 0.7s before Bagnaia made an error on the brakes at the first corner, thus allowing Vinales through into the lead.

In the latter laps, Vinales excellently fended off Jorge Martin to take his first win in almost three years.

“Honestly, [I’m very] happy to be back on the top positions,” Vinales said with a sigh of relief. “I know Qatar [performance] wasn’t our level. I had some issues with the settings [there] but here we are showing that we are finding the way.”

“I’m very happy about how things are going and [I’m] very concentrated for tomorrow, but we’re gonna enjoy today, which is my first win with Aprilia, so I will enjoy it of course.”

“It feels amazing. It’s been a long time, so it feels amazing. I never doubted that I would be back. It was just a matter of time, putting everything together.

“Unfortunately, on the start, the rear device didn’t unlock, and I missed the first position, but I was in a really good position to attack on the first laps.

“And then I just tried to control, I saw I was closing the gap to Pecco step by step, so I was just controlling the rear tire. And when I get a free place, I push, I push every time. I know some parts of the track I have to improve for tomorrow.”

Vinales was also suffering from gastroenteritis going into this weekend and was also considering not participating in the race due to the illness but he was able to push through it to qualify on the front row and then to win the Sprint race.

“We need to enjoy!” said Vinales. “Of course, it’s a big, big day for us. Coming here on the weekend, I didn’t know if I was going to ride and now my first victory with Aprilia is so amazing.”

“I’m very strong on the brakes. I’m happy for that. [It’s] quite different than in Qatar that’s why I said that the balance was very important for me because I recovered again the strongest point of the bike which is the brakes.”

“Also I knew in section 4 I was very strong, so I could keep the gap really well controlling the tires and tomorrow it’s going to be a long long race.”

Clearly the fastest man on the Aprilia this weekend, Vinales feels that tomorrow he will be ‘well recovered’ to fight for the win in the main race.

“We need to be very smart,” the Spaniard pointed. “I think tomorrow I will be well recovered, but the thing was yesterday, it was very important to be on the bike because we needed to try different things and it worked so well.”

“So I’m really happy I forced myself at the maximum to to be able to be competitive in each session.”