in Catalunya. After taking his second pole of the season on Saturday, beating teammate Melandri by +0.053 seconds, Gibernau retained the lead on the opening lap but with a fast-charing Rossi already up to second - overtaking Capirossi, Hayden, Biaggi and Melandri in one lap - when he dropped from third to sixth on the opening lap. With the front trio trading positions frequently, Gibernau made a mistake when he clipped Melandri's rear wheel under breaking for a tight left hander on lap three, causing him to run wide and lose second to Rossi. On lap five, Rossi and Gibernau forced themselves ahead of Melandri when braking for turn one, then pulling a slight gap to him. On lap six, Gibernau overtook Rossi for the lead on the same spot, holding a +0.400 second gap over Rossi by the halfway point. On lap twentyone, Rossi ran slightly wide at the end of the back straight but soon closed up to Gibernau's rear wheel once again. On the twentythird lap, Rossi finally made a pass after getting a superb exit out of the final turn, tucking into Gibernau's slipstream and then passing the Catalan into turn one. After the overtake, Rossi made the best use of his better tyres and set a fastest lap of the race to pull a gap to Gibernau, who couldn't respond in the last three laps of the race. Rossi won the race +1.094 seconds ahead of Gibernau. Two lacklustre results would follow at the Dutch and United States rounds, when Gibernau finished fifth twice. At the British round, Gibernau would retire once more. Qualifying second on a dry Saturday, the Sunday race was rain-affected and - after an aborted first start - Giberanau would lead the field when Rossi was demoted to seventh after a poor start with too much wheelspin. Gibernau then set a relentless pace to pull seconds out of the pursuing pack. As the field crossed the start/finish to complete the first lap, Gibernau had already amassed a 2.4 second gap over the five-man pack in pursuit. Rossi moved into the lead when Gibernau - whom Rossi had begun to catch up to after moving up to second on lap three - highsided from his Gresini Honda on lap four. Gibernau was furious and almost saved the rear-end slide before it pitched him off his bike and into the gravel, thus marking