Just to prove that dreams can come true, Aleix Espargaro won his and Aprilia's first MotoGP race in Argentina, confirming that the pre-season form was no flash in the pan.

Espargaro and Aprilia Win Their First MotoGP Race

Racing - in any form - goes through periods when one team or rider/driver is totally dominant. If we are lucky, there are longer periods when two or more teams are able to head to victory lane and the top step of the podium. If we are really lucky, the quality of racing doesn't suffer in either case.

MotoGP is going through a renaissance of sorts at present, despite the loss of the sport's talisman to retirement at the end of the 2021 season. If anyone feared that MotoGP had lost its beating heart when Valentino Rossi retired, they were happily mistaken.

As much was proved when previously-dominant Marc Marquez sustained injury at the start of the 2020 season and left the field wide open to a host of first-time GP winners, two of whom - Joan Mir and Fabio Quartararo - won the championship in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

2022 looks set to be just as unpredictable as the previous two seasons: already we have had nine different podium sitters in three races. In pre-season testing, Aprilia was looking strong, not necessarily something that translates into race-winning performances when the season proper gets underway.

But, to the delight of the whole MotoGP paddock, Aleix Espargaro and Aprilia finally laid all their ghosts to rest and won their first MotoGP race. It was Espargaro's 200th race start, adding a nice symmetry to proceedings.

Nor was it a victory due to the misfortune of others: this was a victory fair and square, gained by simply being better than the rest over the whole weekend. Fast in truncated practice (Friday running was lost due to freight not arriving from Indonesia in time), Espagaro then proceeded to take pole position, setting him and the team nicely for race day.

Right from the start, the race was between two riders - Jorge Martin on the very fast Pramac Ducati and Espargaro on the ever-improving Aprilia. For lap after lap, Martin led the race, closely shadowed by Espargaro. Twice the Aprilia rider lined up for the pass and made it, only to run wide and let the Ducati back through. But each time, Espargaro was easily able to make up any lost time and glue himself to the back of the Ducati once again without falling into the clutches of Alex Rins on the Suzuki.

With four laps to go, Espargaro took the lead and managed to hold it. Now commenced six-and-a-bit of the most excruciatingly tense minutes of racing any of us have witnessed for a long time. Was there anyone in the world who didn't want Espargaro to win? The tension was unbearable, even more so as we were getting to the end of the race and who knew whose tyres were shot and whose weren't? Would Aprilia and Espargaro snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the dying moments? Would we see Espargaro sliding gracefully out of the race with just a few corners to go?

Racing is nothing without tension and the release as Espargaro crossed the line was explosive. Espargaro was crying his eyes out and no-one could blame him. Six years of pent up frustration, expectation, resignation, disappointment and heartache were all finally banished and everyone was happy.

With the victory, we now have seven winning manufacturers on the grid and all have won in the last year: not one team is holding on to past glories. This is now a proper championship and, with luck, the result will be in doubt to the last corner of the last race.

At the end of the day, it is MotoGP and us, the spectators, who ultimately win. While many riders have their die-hard fans, there are many others who simply want to see a good race, no matter who wins.

With Espargaro's victory, MotoGP is fast becoming the best racing series on the planet - on two wheels or four - simply because it is so unpredictable from one weekend to the next.

We have less than a week to wait for the next race, which takes place at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas. Aprilia and Espargaro have ensured that more people than ever will be tuning in to watch and that can only be a good thing for the sport in general.