Maverick Vinales snatched his first VirtualGP victory at Jerez following a late crash from long-time leader Francesco Bagnaia in the closing stages.
The third edition of the VirtualGP became the first to utilise the recently-released MotoGP20 video game, with the Jerez circuit in Spain chosen as the battleground for the 11 MotoGP pilots.
Vinales was delayed in a first corner melee that initially caused him to drop back from his fourth placed position at the start, but the Yamaha rider quickly set about recovering and had moved back into the podium places just a few laps into the 13 lap contest.
He was held up when trying to pass Marc Marquez for third however, allowing Alex Marquez to pass the pair of them, although Vinales was able to hold third ahead of Marc.
Alex and Vinales then began to stretch away from Marc and even close down runaway leader Bagnaia, who by this point had built up a six second advantage.
Vinales made a small error around mid-distance though and dropped back behind Marc, although the positions reversed once again shortly after courtesy of a crash from Marc.
Vinales displayed impressive speed as he lapped quicker than the pair ahead, and was helped in his recovery by a crash from Alex-the factory Honda man having eroded Bagnaia’s lead to just 2.5 seconds at the time of the incident on the exit of Turn 2.
This allowed Vinales into second, which ultimately became the lead when Bagnaia dropped his Pramac Ducati at the fast Turn 11 right-hander with north of a six second gap and just a few laps remaining, falling to third as a result.
Vinales kept up a strong pace across the closing tours, taking the chequered flag just 2.364 seconds clear of the chasing Alex, while Bagnaia salvaged third a few seconds further back.
Fourth went the way of Marc after surviving a clash with factory Ducati racer Danilo Petrucci, the ’19 Italian GP victor dropping to sixth as the race ended behind Alex Rins’ Suzuki GSX-RR.
Miguel Oliveira came home seventh for the Tech 3 KTM squad, while pole-man Fabio Quartararo suffered a horror race.
Despite setting the fastest lap by nearly half-a-second the Frenchman struggled to keep his M1 on the tarmac, going down several times as he tried to battle through the field after falling from the lead in the early stages of the race.
Likewise trying to recover was the second Tech 3 RC16 of Iker Lecuona, who crashed out from second shortly after Quartararo, although could only manage ninth.
Lorenzo Salvadori and Esteve Rabat completed the finishers.
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