After starting from sixth on the grid, Rossi's Michelin tyres began sliding as early as lap 7 of 22, and his performance deteriorated thereafter. The Italian superstar had never looked like troubling Stoner, who won from pole, but Rossi never imagined his race would turn out quite so bad.
The Fiat Yamaha rider was up to fifth by lap eight when the problems surfaced, after which a defenceless Rossi was overtaken by Rizla Suzuki's
Chris Vermeulen and then Ducati Marlboro's
Loris Capirossi. The Italian then clung desperately to seventh in the closing stages, eventually holding off Kawasaki's
Randy de Puniet by just half a second at the flag.
"We expected a difficult race today because we knew our potential here wasn't very high after the last two days. However it was even worse than we expected," confessed The Doctor, who had previously claimed that a strong race was possible. "I tried to keep my rhythm going but, after only seven or eight laps, the tyre started to slide a lot on the right side and from then on I wasn't able to open the throttle.
"Throughout the weekend we have done everything to try to find more traction," he continued. "We have changed the setting a lot to try to find a way to make the tyre work, but unfortunately during the race we had no grip. Also, with the setting we had to use, we had to sacrifice some of our corner speed and this also slowed us down. It was very difficult today. I was able to do 1min 59secs to start with but after a few laps the tyre made a big step down and then I just had to wait for the end of the race.
