However, Gibernau would retire from the race on Sunday which was won by the Australian Garry McCoy. In Malaysia, Gibernau would perform better. He qualified outside of the top 10 on Saturday but bounced back on Sunday to finish in a respectable seventh position, scoring his first points of the year. However, bad luck would continue to plague Gibernau at the next two rounds. He crashed out of the Japanese GP and did the same in Spain. This was his first back-to-back double DNF since 1998. After the bad results in Suzuka and Jerez, Gibernau went on to score points again at the French and Italian rounds when he finished 15th and 10th. At round seven in Catalunya, Gibernau retired for the fourth consecutive time this season. On Saturday, in tenth position, he barely qualified. but would crash out of the race once again on Sunday on a wet and slippery track. At the next four races, things would improve for Gibernau. He finished seventh in the Netherlands, eighth in Great Britain and Germany and sixth in the Czech Republic. At the inaugural GP in Portugal, Gibernau retired for the fifth time this season when he crashed out of the race. In the next three races, Gibernau would again bounce back from bad fortunes. At the Valencian Community round, he qualified ninth on Saturday and finished eighth on Sunday. In Rio de Janeiro, Gibernau finished seventh and at the inaugural Pacific Grand Prix, he finished 12th. At the final round of the season—the Australian race—Gibernau retired for the sixth time this season when he stopped in the pits. Gibernau finished 15th in the championship with 72 points, 186 points behind the champion Kenny Roberts Jr. and 137 points behind runner-up Valentino Rossi. After the disappointing and struggling season Gibernau had in 2000, the Repsol Honda team decided to drop both Tadayuki Okada and him, to which he signed with the factory Suzuki MotoGP team for the 2001 season, replacing Nobuatsu Aoki. Suzuki (2001) 2001 After his switch from Honda to Suzuki, Gibernau continued to struggle with the underperforming RGV500 machine compared to the stronger Honda and Yamaha bikes. At the opening round in Japan, Gibernau retired after crashing out of the race. After his misfortunes in Suzuka, Gibernau consistently finished in the points on the next nine GPs—tenth in South Africa and Spain, ninth in France, sixth in Italy, fifth