second place Max Biaggi. With Alex Barros moving up the field and eventually overtaking Biaggi on lap two for second place, closed down the gap to around one second, before failing to trim it down even more. Around lap eight, white flags were shown to signal the first ever 'flag-to-flag' rain race, meaning that the race would not be stopped and that the riders themselves could decide whether or not to swap bikes. Because the rain was not intense enough to swap bikes, no rider went into the pits to do so. However, on lap sixteen, the rain went from just a few spots to a serious shower at turn one, catching out Gibernau who lost the front of his bike before he even reached the apex. Gibernau tried to continue but failed because his bike went out during the fall, leaving the already injured Gibernau to walk away with his head shaking in disbelief. Barros won the race, with Gibernau now dropping to fifth in the championship standings as a result. At the inaugural Chinese grand prix, Gibernau took his first pole of the year on Saturday, beating teammate Marco Melandri by +0.163 seconds. On Sunday however, Gibernau knew he was in trouble before the rain-affected race had even begun when he felt his rear tyre vibrating on the warm-up lap. At the start, Gibernau got overtaken by the Factory Suzuki of John Hopkins and teammate Melandri when the vibration kicked in and he was pushed wide. By the end of lap five, he had struggled back to second after Kenny Roberts Jr. had retired and Hopkins had faded. Around the halfway stage, Rossi had increased the gap to Gibernau with about +6.3 seconds, but replacement rider Olivier Jacque was only +0.600 seconds behind him and was closing in fast, setting the fastest laps of the race. Gibernau fought hard to keep him behind, but the tyre problems prevented him from doing so properly and that allowed Jacque to pass Gibernau on lap fourteen. Halfway around the last lap, Melandri took third place from Gibernau, demoting him to fourth at the very end of the race. This meant that Gibernau now slipped to 37 points behind championship leader Valentino Rossi. In France, Gibernau finished second once more. With the race declared 'wet' minutes before the start, Gibernau went from fourth to seventh on the opening lap, with Rossi losing