in Catalunya, ninth on Saturday qualifying and seventh on Sunday in the Netherlands, 11th in Great Britain, tenth in Germany and eighth in the Czech Republic. At the Portuguese round, Gibernau retired for the second time this season. When Norifumi Abe crashed, he collected Àlex Crivillé, Alex Barros and Gibernau in the process. However, Gibernau would surprise everyone when he won the Valencian Community race. Before the start of the Grand Prix, rain made the track very wet, but once the rain stopped and temperatures started to increase again, the circuit started to dry up. However, the race direction declared the race to be a "wet race", meaning that the race would not be stopped in the event of more rain. With the track drying up, there would be a big chance that the circuit would eventually be too dry for wet tyres. Initially, all the riders opted to use the wet tyres, but Gibernau chose to use the slick tyres instead, as did his teammate Kenny Roberts Jr. and several others. As the race went on, Rossi—who had built up a commanding four-second lead at one point—was quickly swallowed up as his gamble to use the wet tyres did not pay off and was overtaken by Gibernau, Roberts and Alex Barros, who was riding with an intermediate front and a slick rear tyre. Both Gibernau and Barros battled hard for the lead of the race, Gibernau taking the lead from Rossi on lap eight and holding it until Barros pushed past on lap 13. The Spaniard and the Brazilian swapped places on multiple occasions on lap 20, until Sete made the best use of his slick tyres on a drying track and ducked underneath Barros on lap 29 to retake the lead for the final time. Barros, whose intermediate front tyre was completely ruined, was all over the back of Gibernau on the final lap of the race but could not overtake him, allowing Gibernau to win his first ever 500cc race in front of more than 120.000 Spanish fans. He also scored his third fastest lap of his career. After scoring his first ever win, Gibernau continued to score consistent points in the final four rounds of the season—ninth in the Pacific and Australia, eighth in Malaysia and 12th at the final race in Rio de Janeiro. Gibernau finished ninth in the championship with 119 points, 206 points