Hayden started fifth but dropped to seventh on the opening lap before moving up the field and finding himself second, behind Pedrosa. In the last 10 laps, Hayden closed the gap to Pedrosa to just 0.6 seconds with four laps to go, but he responded by upping his pace, setting a fastest lap and increasing the gap to win his first ever race with a margin of 1.505 seconds over Hayden. At the French GP, Hayden finished off the podium for the first time this season by finishing fifth, but would still leave Le Mans with a 43-point advantage over Rossi in the championship because he finished even lower in eighth. His closest contenders at that time were Marco Melandri and Loris Capirossi, who were both three points behind at that point. After France, Hayden bounced back by finishing third in Italy, battling throughout the race and almost taking second from Capirossi (which also caused Capirossi to take the lead in the championship), second in Catalunya (while both Capirossi and Melandri missed the race), scoring the fastest lap, and scoring his first victory of the season at the Dutch round. Hayden started from fifth on the grid but overtook Marco Melandri, Shinya Nakano and pole-sitter John Hopkins to move up to second and chase down Colin Edwards, who had been leading the race for much of the race. On the penultimate lap, Hayden overtook him under braking for the back chicane. Edwards tried to keep his Factory Yamaha alongside him but was forced to lift and go down an escape road—rejoining just over a second from the Factory Honda rider. That mistake looked likely to settle the race, but Edwards pushed hard and passed Hayden again with just half a lap to go. Both were riding on the limit, but Edwards got a better drive heading into the fast kinks that precede the final chicane and retook the lead with just a few corners to go. Edwards then ran his M1 wide through the fast left hander, giving him a defensive inside line for the final chicane. Hayden lunged his machine and both went through the corner side-by-side, but Hayden couldn't make the corner (possibly after selecting neutral) and ran wide across the gravel. This would have given the victory to Edwards, but he also ran wide onto a slick patch of synthetic grass and was thrown off his bike,