Alex Barros got the best run off the line from Rossi, Roberts, Gibernau, McWilliams, Ukawa and Biaggi.  Olivier Jacque fell towards the end of lap 1, as did Pere Riba.  Valentino Rossi burned past Barros on the main straight and made the two-stroke rider feel as though he was standing still and with no answer to the all conquering power of Rossi's four-stroke RC211V Honda.

Sete Gibernau then turned the wick up and took the lead from Valentino Rossi towards the end of lap 2.  Carlos Checa got a disastrous start from the front row but was working hard to recover from his terrible start which left him languishing in 12th but a fastest lap on the second lap promoted him to 7th.  Regis Laconi crashed out on lap 4.

Sete Gibernau was the fastest man on lap 4 with a 2-minute flat lap, some 20 seconds slower than what the riders were doing during dry qualifying on Saturday.  The conditions were not just wet, but diabolical.  Gibernau looked fantastic in the wet, backing the four-stroke Suzuki GSV-R in to the corners very sideways and very spectacular.  The next lap around Gibernau dropped the times to 1m58s leaving Rossi, Ukawa and Roberts in his wake to the tune of 1.5 seconds.  Carlos Checa still trying to make up all the ground he lost at the start, and by lap 6 was lapping faster than race leader Gibernau.

Ukawa moved past Rossi to take 2nd with 21 laps to run and was the fastest man on lap 7.  Kato crashed out while in 12th position.  Loris Capirossi also went out.

Gibernau had stretched his lead out to over 5 seconds by lap 10, Ukawa was just managing to hang on to his 2nd position from a determined Rossi.  Valentino finally got past Ukawa on the next lap to move back up in to 2nd position.  Carlos Checa had moved past Kenny Roberts to take 4th position and started to threaten Ukawa for the final step on the podium.

Valentino Rossi immediately started closing ground on Gibernau to reduce the gap to just over 4 seconds but Gibernau responded straight away to extend the gap back out to 5 seconds with a stunning 1m53s lap in atrocious conditions.  Carlos Checa moved past Ukawa to take 3rd.

A couple of laps later Gibernau lapped Garry McCoy.  The Australian won at Estoril a couple of years ago but the terrible conditions not to his liking this weekend.  Shinya Nakano crashed but managed to rejoin the track, albeit a lap down from the leaders.

Sete Gibernau and Valentino Rossi were both pushing pretty hard in the wet conditions but the Spaniard was managing to maintain around a 5 second advantage over the Italian.  But then with 6 laps to run Rossi pulled out a better lap than Gibernau to close the gap down to under 4 seconds as the leaders lapped Jeremy McWilliams.

Sete Gibernau and Valentino Rossi then traded fastest lap for fastest lap but Gibernau lost the rear on the way in to a turn with only a couple of laps remaining, essentially gifting the win to Valentino Rossi.  The fall was probably caused by the pressure being applied by Rossi which made the Spaniard crack but still Gibernau's ride was fantastic, it was just a crying shame that he was not able to give Team Suzuki the big boost they so desperately need.

From there Rossi just continued on as normal and took a very clear win over Carlos Checa, Tohru Ukawa 3rd.