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Photos from the 2015 Red Bull Indianapolis GP

Honda and Yamaha go tire-to-tire at the Brickyard

August 9, 2015

Lorenzo rode a near faultless race and later admitted that it was one of his best races yet. Unfortunately, he also admitted that he'd thrown all of his energy away trying to escape from Marquez, something he was never actually able to do.

Marquez didn't lead the most laps this year at Indy, but he did lead the most important one. The Spaniard has never lost a MotoGP race on American soil.

It was almost painful to watch Rossi try and draft past Pedrosa down either straight, the Honda very clearly having a power advantage over the Yamaha. There's also that whole 10-inch difference in height thing...

Rossi got by Pedrosa with 10 laps to go, but then had a hard time dropping the Spaniard. Pedrosa actually regained third position going into the last lap, only to have Rossi fight back going into turn two and eventually claim the final step on the podium. In case you were wondering, he's still got it...

The crazy thing is that this is how Marquez actually wants the RC213V to work.Andrew Northcott

Indy '15. Will there be a MotoGP race at the Brickyard next year? Rumors—and a diminishing presence of US riders in the MotoGP paddock—suggest there very well could not be.

Rossi said he was happy to have only let the gap between he and Lorenzo diminish by 4 points. The two are now separated by just 9 points, with Marquez a total of 56 points behind The Doctor.

Yamaha did top Honda in at least one aspect this weekend at Indy. Of course by that we mean Bradley Smith and Pol Esparago put their Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamahas ahead of Cal Crutchlow's factory-spec Honda RC213V CWM-LCR Honda.

As has been the case since the Ducati GP15′s pace started to taper off and Marquez threw a leg over the hybrid Honda RC213V, which is based around his 2014 chassis but uses the 2015 engine plus new exhaust, Indianapolis was a fight between Honda and Yamaha. In one battle (Marquez vs. Lorenzo), Honda came out on top, and in the other (Rossi vs. Pedrosa), it was Yamaha that prevailed.

The race was not outwardly exciting, but absolutely thrilling if you take the championship standings into account. At one point, Rossi was at risk of losing 12 points to Lorenzo, yet when things were all said and done he lost just four—not bad considering his dismal qualifying effort.

The series heads to Brno next weekend, where no doubt Honda and Yamaha will continue to push each other and things will get shuffled yet again. Until then, here are some photos from Honda’s and Yamaha’s weekend at Indy to keep you entertained.