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World champion Marc Marquez takes pole for Indianapolis MotoGP

Points leader Valentino Rossi, of Italy, finished almost six seconds back in third.

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When Marquez accelerated, Lorenzo had no chance of stopping the fearless 22-year-old Spanish star.

Covering off the undercut from Lorenzo, he then managed to push on and hold his compatriot back before crossing the line to score his fifth straight win at the Brickyard. Formula One star Michael Schumacher (2003-06) was the only other driver in a major series to win four straight at Indy.

A fairly lethargic race burst into life in the last few laps as Rossi and Pedrosa battled for the final podium slot and Lorenzo and Marquez finally stopped their game of cat and mouse.

Marquez is trying to rebound from a challenging start to his 2015 campaign, including three DNFs in the first seven races.

“Even going faster than in practice our pace was not enough to win from Marc and his Honda, who were very strong all weekend”, Lorenzo said. In Saturday morning’s FP3 session, which determines the qualifying groups, Repsol Honda’s Marquez came back to lead practice, ahead of Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider Bradley Smith. Neither Marquez nor the bike was seriously damaged. Aprilia’s Bautista was 18th, while Stefan Bradl was 20th in his first race at the helm of the RS-GP bike.

Bridgestone engineers mount a rear slick to the Repsol Honda of Marc Marquez. Ducati’s Andrea Iannone follows them in the standings, and finished this grand prix in 5th behind Pedrosa.

“So it was a little bit hard to fight against my mind to recover the confidence and start the race with full confidence”.

Marquez’ third year of MotoGP hasn’t been as easy, causing the 22-year old Spaniard to question whether his aggressive riding style is suited to the latest Honda RC213V and Bridgestone tires.

“It looks like here, we are able to be fast”, the two-time defending world champ said.

Lorenzo didn’t have enough left to catch him.

“But he said that he has good skill and he rides a 450 [motocross bike] and everything”. “So when he passed me I made some mistakes”.

He is now languishing well down the championship standings, fully 65 points adrift of Rossi with 114.

He may be leading the championship, but a bad qualifying for Rossi saw him start in eighth place at Indy with Marquez on pole. “Twenty-five points are important”. The reigning MotoGP ™ World Champion has won the last two races at the circuit from pole position, and signs are ominous that he might do the same this weekend after he was the only rider to break the 1’32 barrier during Q2.

In Moto3, Belgian Livio Loi took the win and Britain’s John McPhee took second place, his first ever grand prix podium. Loi started 26th in the 34-motorcycle field.

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Marquez’s team-mate Dani Pedrosa capped his comeback from the arm pump surgery that forced him to miss three races earlier in the season with second at the Sachsenring.

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