with Valentino Rossi for the lead on multiple occasions, until he fell back during the race to sixth before eventually crossing the line in fifth place after his left-boot protector fell off during the race and rode with a bleeding left foot. The seventh round at the Catalunya shaped the rest of Gibernau's season and the rest of his career, in an extraordinary crash described later by race commentators as "Terrifying" and "I have never been so scared in my life, commentating a race". In the crowded first corner, a fast right-hander, Gibernau's teammate Capirossi moved left around traffic across Gibernau's faster line (over 124 mph (198 km/h) at the point of the accident, according to the datalogger) and collected his front brake lever, locking Gibernau's front wheel and flipping his bike end over end. It only narrowly missed landing on the unconscious Gibernau. In the resulting group crash, six riders went into the gravel, five motorcycles were wrecked, three riders were taken to hospital, and race organisers stopped the race. Gibernau's ambulance itself then had an accident on the way to hospital, hitting a bus just 50 metres from the hospital entrance, although he did not suffer any further injury. It was later confirmed that he had concussion and had broken a bone in his hand and re-broken the collar bone broken at Assen, necessitating the removal and replacement of the metal plate. The accident caused him to miss the next two rounds in the Netherlands and Great Britain, but returned at the Germany where he finished eighth, despite feeling weak beforehand. At the United States round, Gibernau finished tenth. Gibernau missed the Czech Republic round after it was discovered that the titanium plate inserted into Sete Gibernau's broken collarbone had 'weakened' and thus needed surgery to be fixed. His fitness improved and he returned for the Malaysian round, managing a commendable fifth-place finish. At the following round in Australia, Gibernau led the race for some time after rain forced riders to swap bikes, but a wrong tyre change saw him drop to fourth after Rossi snatched third place from him on the final corner of the last lap. In Japan, Gibernau finished fourth once more, despite being involved in a late-race collision with the Kawasaki of Shinya Nakano when he tried to overtake him at the downhill right-hand turn, at the end of the back straight. In the