At round two in Portugal, Gibernau marked his first retirement of the season. After qualifying second on Saturday, Gibernau then took the lead when the lights went out and everyone headed into turn one. Gibernau immediately upped the pace and pulled a +1.700 second gap to 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 decided 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.