Francesco Bagnaia came out on top of a thrilling battle with Maverick Vinales to win the second StayAtHomeGP at the Red Bull Ring by just 0.074.
Several riders made their StayAtHomeGP debuts for this outing, including nine-time premier class champion Valentino Rossi and ’19 Italian grand prix winner Danilo Petrucci.
The contestants this time competed at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, with a ten lap race deciding who would take victory in the second official MotoGP eSports event.
Bagnaia had secured pole position by just 0.038 ahead of the Yamaha man in the preceeding qualifying session, but lost his advantage off the start as most of the field ran wide into Turn 1.
The fracas allowed Takaaki Nakagami-who took the start a lowly ninth-to shoot through into an early lead, although it would be short-lived as the Japanese ace ran wide at the next corner, rejoining second behind Bagnaia.
Vinales quickly followed through into second and began his pursuit of Bagnaia, the gap remaining under a second over the opening laps.
Vianles then dive-bombed the Pramac Ducati man at Turn 2 as the contest reached mid-distance, but he ran wide and Bagnaia accepted the invitation to re-take the leadership.
The Spaniard tried again the following tour though, this time snatching the lead away and immediately starting to pull out a slender advantage.
Disaster then struck for Vinales though as he tucked the front of his M1 at Turn 3, gifting a three second to the Italian and giving him a lot of work to do.
Vinales benefitted from an error by Bagnaia though to get right on the back of his rear wheel as the final lap began, slipstreaming the Ducati to dive past at Turn 3, but then dropping back as Bagnaia shot back down the inside at the following bend.
This proved to be the crucial manoeuvre as Vinales was unable to stay close enough, crossing the line just 0.333 down on Bagnaia-which became 0.074 after a track limit penalty for Ducati was applied.
First round-victor Alex Marquez managed to get the best once again of his brother Marc Marquez to round out the podium position in a distant third, with the pair battling tooth and nail for the place at one point.
Marc critically ran wide at Turn 4 at the mid-point of the race and dropped a few seconds to his younger sibling, a gap that would remain constant until the chequered flag.
Fabio Quartararo salvaged fifth despite a crash-strewn event, passing Valentino Rossi and Danilo Petrucci for the position on the final tour.
Rossi tried to snatch sixth from the factory Ducati man at the final corner, but tucked the front and went down-allowing Petrucci to keep the position while Rossi managed to hold seventh ahead of Nakagami.
Michele Pirro and Tito Rabat both struggled for speed in their own respective virtual MotoGP debuts, rounding out the field in ninth and tenth.
