Rio de Janeiro, fourth again in the Pacific, second once again in Malaysia, fourth once again in Australia and finally second once more at the final race of the season in Valencia, battling with Rossi throughout the race once more. Gibernau finished second in the championship with 277 points, 80 points behind the champion Valentino Rossi. Gibernau won four races, took five second-place finishes and one third-place finish. Rossi has described 2003 in his career as "the year of Gibernau, it was hard until the end." 2004 There was much anticipation surrounding the 2004 championship as Valentino Rossi had made a shock move to the Factory Yamaha team and, Gibernau's preseason and early season speed would indicate he was in a good position to win the title. With the traditional first race of the season at Suzuka off the list due to safety considerations following the fatal accident of Daijiro Kato, the 2004 season started at Welkom in South Africa. On Saturday, Gibernau qualified in second place - just 0.035 seconds behind Rossi - and ended the race in a distant third place after Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi had a fierce battle for the win. At round two of the season in Spain, Gibernau took his first win of the year in a wet-weather race. Having qualified his Gresini Honda in second place behind Rossi on Saturday, Gibernau - along with Biaggi - would pass a quickly fading Rossi, who had a lack of pace on the wet Jerez track. Around the halfway point, Biaggi - who was shadowing Gibernau since the first lap - passed him for the lead, only to run wide and hand the position back to the Spaniard one lap later. After his mistake, Biaggi continued to follow Gibernau as the pair rode away from third place Alex Barros, building up a 27 second lead with eight laps to go. With five laps to go, Gibernau upped the pace and created one-second gap. Biaggi tried to respond but when the last lap started, the gap had increased to two seconds. Gibernau crossed the line +5.452 seconds ahead of Biaggi to score an emotional home victory. He also scored his first fastest lap of the season. One round later, at the French round, Gibernau scored his first ever back-to-back victory after conquering his first pole position of the year on Saturday by just 0.150 seconds over