Chambon misses podium by a whisker.

There were no podium places at Monza for Team Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra riders Stephane Chambon and Katsuaki Fujiwara, though Chambon came very close.

Australian Chris Vermeuelen blasted his Honda into the lead right from the start and was headed on his way to a second win of the season. Van de Goorbergh had a fairly lonely ride for second, but there was a tremendous multi-rider fight for third place which had the sun-blessed crowd jumping up and down with every lap.

Fujiwara and Chambon were both involved in this dog-fight early in the race, but Fujiwara's Suzuki began falling back through the field. Chambon managed to stay with the pack and was in third place until the last lap when Briton Iain MacPherson went past and held on by less then three hundredths of a second.

"Well today was the best day of the weekend because we had some problems in practice for sure," said Chambon afterwards. "Today my Alstare Suzuki GSXR600 felt much better. The acceleration was good, the Showa suspension worked well and the Dunlops were good throughout the race. We knew that this would be a difficult track for us because of the need for top end speed but in the end fourth wasn't too bad. Third would've been better of course!"

Fujiwara eventually finished tenth after a hard race. "I am disappointed today and my title challenge has slipped a little. My start was good, but as the race wore on, I could not stay with the leaders and I lost place after place. To finish tenth makes me unhappy, because I know I should've finished higher. I will try and make up for it in the next round at Oschersleben."