Coronavirus has played havoc with many peoples lives globally, and for many it\u2019s put the importance of sports into perspective. However, sports are, for many of us, a genuine hobby, interest, relaxation, or whatever.<\/p>\n

Recently, F1 have been using esports platforms as a bit of a gimmick, with several stars (most notably Lando Norris) posting about their engagement in esports while the series is in lockdown.<\/p>\n

MotoGP have gone one step further, however, and ran a Virtual Grand Prix which was broadcast live today. 10 current top MotoGP stars, including current World Champion Marc Marquez, competed in the 6-lap race. Predictably it was carnage, but the lap times were ultra competitive when compared to seasoned esports champions.<\/p>\n

Ultimately the race was won by Alex Marquez, with Pecco Bagnaia second and Maverik Vinales third after being taken out in turn one, but the result isn\u2019t the important thing here.\u00a0A bit of a gimmick, yes, but a real feather in the cap of game technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coronavirus has played havoc with many peoples lives globally, and for many it\u2019s put the importance of sports into perspective. However, sports are, for many of us, a genuine hobby, interest, relaxation, or whatever. Recently, F1 have been using esports platforms as a bit of a gimmick, with several stars (most notably Lando Norris) posting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/stayhomegp.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benedictireland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}