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 the lead and ending up sixth as well. While Rossi worked himself up the order, Gibernau stayed seventh for four more laps, then dropped eighth, before making an impressive comeback. He overtook Alex Barros on lap five, Shinya Nakano on lap six, Melandri on lap eight, then overtaking Loris Capirossi and Nicky Hayden for third on lap sixteen. Rossi now realised that Gibernau was moving in fast, he needed to overtake teammate Colin Edwards and use him as a blocker, but with Gibernau being very fast in the wet, he quickly moved in and was right behind Rossi's rear wheel eventually. With Rossi trying to overtake Edwards for the first time - diving cleanly inside - he ran wide which allowed Gibernau to take second place from Rossi in the following corner, blocking an attempt by Rossi to hold the outside line. However, with Edwards still delivering a nearly faultless ride, Gibernau now also was faced with the problem of passing Edwards. His attempts to pass him leaving the door open for Rossi to recover the lost ground and the position, which he did with a sudden pass. With eight laps to go, Edards made his only real error of the race, allowing Rossi to dive inside the race leader on the first apex of a double right-hander and take first place, causing Gibernau to overtake him as well when the trio went into the second apex. The top two then broke away but Gibernau wasn't able to pass Rossi in the closing laps, his tyres sliding too much on the final lap to do so. Eventually, Gibernau finished +0.382 seconds behind Rossi in second place.