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No weaknesses for MotoGP rivals Lorenzo and Marquez, says Rossi

MotoGP championship leader Valentino Rossi expects a fierce title fight in the second half of the season because he feels rivals Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez have no weaknesses

Rossi leads the standings at the halfway stage of the season, 13 points ahead of his Yamaha team-mate Lorenzo with Honda rider Marquez 65 points back, fourth in the standings behind Ducati's Andrea Iannone.

Speaking ahead of this weekend's race at Indianapolis, Rossi declared the title fight a three-way battle with Lorenzo and Marquez, and he is not expecting anyone to have bad days where they drop points.

When asked about the 2015 title race, Rossi said: "It's difficult this year because we are not just two riders but three, and also Iannone.

"It's a great season because a lot of riders are very fast and the level is so high.

"You have to concentrate all weekend, it's important because if you make mistakes during practice you can lose a lot of points.

"All the top riders have great experience and don't have any weak points. Nobody has bad tracks.

"Jorge and Marc are very strong at all the tracks so you need to take points to the end of the season.

"I worked a lot on qualifying because sometimes I was not strong enough."

Rossi declared last month it would be "stupid" to rule Marquez out of title contention, and Lorenzo said the Yamaha team never wrote the reigning world champion off, even when he had a difficult start to the 2015 campaign.

"We didn't put him away, never," said Lorenzo. "He is in the fight for the championship.

"He is able to win a lot of races in a row, like he showed last year.

"There are a lot of points at play and he can recover, or we can make mistakes, so he is still one of the favourites."

Rossi added: "At the beginning of the season he had some problems with the feeling with the bike and he lost some points.

"But he has come back strong. The distance is quite a lot in the points but we are only in the middle of the season so we have to keep concentrating."

Marquez described Honda's recent test at Misano as "great", and he confirmed he will continue to ride the 2014 frame he switched back to two races ago, which coincided with his upturn in form.

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