until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Francesco Bagnaia has taken a superb last-lap victory from Maverick Vinales in the second edition of MotoGP’s esports StayAtHomeGP, with a close fight between the duo seeing only 0.074 separating them at the chequered flag.
The drama started early with the Red Bull Ring’s tight opening turn providing the expected chaos. A pile-up that saw half the grid go down allowed a number of riders to make a break, with LCR Honda’s Taka Nakagami an early race leader until crashes took him out of contention.
Once the race got properly underway, it was a much closer fight at the front in the opening laps of the race than in the first StayAtHomeGP, with Bagnaia and Vinales locked in battle for the opening six laps.
They traded places multiple times with aggressive overtakes, until a crash for the Monster Energy Yamaha rider from the lead allowed Pramac Ducati man Bagnaia to just pull away and looked set to decide the race.
However, Vinales was able to rally forward again in the final laps and to set up a duel that went down to the penultimate corner and provided solid entertainment.
Speaking afterwards, Bagnaia said: “There was a lot of pressure in the race because when Maverick overtook me he was able to set a very fast pace. My rear tyre was overheating and I lost a lot of grip, so I had to be careful – but it was a lot of fun!”
Behind the duo, it was race one winner Alex Marquez who took the final podium position from his brother and Honda team-mate Marc, holding off the reigning world champion’s best advances and finest trash-talking.
Petronas SRT Yamaha man Fabio Quartararo was fifth, recovering well from being caught up in the opening corner fall despite suffering multiple crashes afterwards, while a last corner slide for another Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi handed sixth to fellow Italian Danilo Petrucci of Ducati.
Nakagami eventually finished eighth, ahead of Ducati test rider Michele Pirro and Avintia Ducati rider Tito Rabat.
