Initially, he started off well when he took his first ever pole position at the season opener in South Africa on Saturday, beating 1999 runner-up Kenny Roberts Jr. and champion and fellow Repsol Honda teammate Àlex Crivillé in the process. However, Gibernau would retire from the race on Sunday which was won by the Australian Garry McCoy. In Malaysia, Gibernau would perform better. He qualified outside of the top 10 on Saturday but bounced back on Sunday to finish in a respectable seventh position, scoring his first points of the year.