Maverick Vinales: “Amazing” Aprilia victory, but is he MotoGP's first winner on three different bikes?

Maveri🍎ck Vinales victorious for Aprilia in the Portimao Sprint. Record books say otherwise but ‘in my head’ he’s now the first rider to win on three different brands of MotoGP bike.

Maverick Vinales, Tissot sprint race, Portuguese MotoGP, 23 March
Maverick Vinales, Tissot sprint race, Portuguese MotoGP, 23 March

168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Maverick Vinales halted Ducati’s 19 race run of consecutive MotoGP victories and, although the reꦫcord books won’t agree, became the first rider to ‘win’ on three different brands of four-stroke bike in Sa𓆉turday’s Portimao Sprint.

Despite being at the tail end of the top te🌄n in Qatar and struggling with gastroenteritis at Portimao, Vinales finally found the feeling he had been missing throughout winter testing on the revised 2024 Aprilia.

Qualifying behind only Ducatiಌ’s Enea Bastianini, Vinales snatched the ꩲholeshot, only to be swiftly shuffled back to fourth.

But the Spaniard responded, re-passing the Ducatis of Jorge Martin and Marc Marquez. That put Vinales behind only race le♊ader Francesco Bagnaia, who suddenly speared wide at Turn 1 after a braking mistake with four laps to go.

Vinales still had Spr🌳int specialist Martin climbing all over his rear wheel but kept calm and when the reigning title runner-up ran wide, took the chequered flag in P1 for the first time since Qatar 2021 (with Yamaha).

“It’s been a long time!” Vinales said. “Today,🐠 was tough. A l👍ot of battles. But that’s a Sprint race.

“Of course I'm really happy because I closed this cir🍷cle, finally. It's a big, big relief and I'm really happy to sh𓃲ow the confidence and the big potential we have.

“What I see as the difference, especially from Qatar to her🐭e, is that I can really brake well and I can push the front t♕yre. So I can be much more competitive everywhere on the track.

“In Qatar, I was not pushing the tyres in the correc𒁏t way. And it's a big difference because I can ride better, more sharp and especially I can brake very late, which is one of my qualities. And then pick up the bike very fast. All of that makes that the tyre life 💞longer.

“The Sprint was pretty fast today [3 sec faster than last year]. But the rear tyre did𓆏n't go down🀅 so I could push.

Pecco in the beginning was very fast, he took one second away in just twoℱ laps. And then I was catching little by little. But he was riding well. So when I see the mistake, I say, ‘OK, if I keep riding like this, it's gonna be tough for the guys🌟 behind to overtake me’.

“At the end, it's 😼amazing to do my first victory with Aprilia. It's crazy.”

It may not count as a ‘MotoGP win’ in the record books but, after watching team-mate Aleix Espargaro celebrate three GP wins and a Sprint triumph, it was the 🎶first time Vinales has won since joining Aprilia midway through 2021.

“We race harder in the ༺sprint tha🔯n the [GP] race!” Vinales said.

“Normally in the sprint is where I struggle the most, so to make a victory in the sprint is amazing. I'm curious for tomorrow because of course, to make a victory depends on a lot of things. Bu🌃t we have the opportunity to do it and that's fantastic.”

But can he beat Jack Miller and Alex Rins to th💙e honour of first rider to officially win on three different brands of bike in tomorrow's grand prix?

“In my head I already did! B♏ut of course, I'm really hungry for that for [GP] victory, and I think the team too. If it's not here, i🎃t will be in another track.

“Now I just really want to go to the box, try to improve a few things and be ready for tomorrow because it's going to be a long race. I think the rear tyre will be very crucial, 🌃so we need to really understand what we need for the long race.”

Vinales took his first MotoGP victory with Suzuki before eight f🐼urther wins for Yamaha.

Team-mate Esp🍷argaro finished as the next best Aprilia in eighth place, from 13th on the grid.

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