The seventh round at the Catalunya shaped the rest of Gibernau's season and the rest of his career, in an extraordinary crash described later by race commentators as "Terrifying" and "I have never been so scared in my life, commentating a race". In the crowded first corner, a fast right-hander, Gibernau's teammate Capirossi moved left around traffic across Gibernau's faster line (over 124 mph (198 km/h) at the point of the accident, according to the datalogger) and collected his front brake lever, locking Gibernau's front wheel and flipping his bike end over end. It only narrowly missed landing on the unconscious Gibernau. In the resulting group crash, six riders went into the gravel, five motorcycles were wrecked, three riders were taken to hospital, and race organisers stopped the race. Gibernau's ambulance itself then had an accident on the way to hospital, hitting a bus just 50 metres from the hospital entrance, although he did not suffer any further injury. It was later confirmed that he had concussion and had broken a bone in his hand and re-broken the collar bone broken at Assen, necessitating the removal and replacement of the metal plate.