Instead, that honour went to team-mate Aleix Espargaro, who finally celebrated a first grand prix win in any class during ❀his 284th appearance, in Argentina last Sunday.

"Aleix is working fantastic, he showed the bike has the potential to win - he won!" smiled Vinales, who claimed his and the&nb꧂sp;Suzuki GSX-RR's first MotoGP win as a team-mate to Espargaro back in 2016.

"I'm hoಌnestly very happy because I think one victory will ch༒ange a lot the image of the team.

"This is the most importa🧸nt, because sometimes also the image, your presence in the media, is important and I think if the team grows up everything will be better.

"I thought Aleix could win [after qualifying] because he had something extra over th💎e rest. So I really was wishing that Aleix could win because it's very 🐭important for the team and sponsors. We are very happy."

'We have the base and can only go up'

Vinales also recorded a new RS-GP personal best on Sunday courtesy of a more modest seventh place, 6.5s behind E♏spargaro.

"I battled so hard that I finished the tyres very soon. I was battling with the Ducatis, I passed them, they overtook me again🌠, and I lost at least 3-🌞4 seconds battling with them," said Vinales, who held fifth position until narrowly losing out to both Francesco Bagnaia and KTM's Brad Binder.

"But I cannot complain. I improved by almost 20-seconds compared to [Qa🌳tar] and the feeling is there.

"This race was one of the most important for us because we need🌳ed to confiꦿrm the setting change we did in Mandalika was correct.

"Here we confirmed it was correct. I felt much better with the bike from the first l꧋ap. Still there is work to do, a lot of things still to learn and understand but the most important thing is we have the base and can only go up.

"Now we have a lot of data to understand and my team-mate won. We couldn’t ask f🧜or more than this [i🥂n Argentina]."

Vinale☂s will now take that promising base setting straight to this weekend's Americas MotoGP in Austin, Texas.

"I love Austin, it's one of my favourite 🎃tracks. I've always been super fast in this track. But we will keep the same mentality. We nee🌳d to go there, learn and put more [work] on the base and keep building," he said.

"We know the championship is very long. We🎃 don’t need♏ to hurry. We have time to learn and work.

"Still I need to get confident with the bike. I gave myself until Jerez [⛦round 5] to be at the maximum with the bike and team."

Vinales, who finished second to Marc Marquez at COTA in ꦫ2018, missed last October's ﷽race after the tragic death of his cousin Dean Berta Vinales.

Although Aprilia has now joined the other five MotoGP manufacturers in achieving a race win, they rꦐemain the only factory with access to technical concessions, having so far accumulated four of th🎃e maximum six 'podium points'.