The 2003 Dutch TT was the seventh round of the 2003 MotoGP Championship. It took place on the weekend of 26–28 June 2003 at the TT Circuit Assen located in Assen, Netherlands.
MotoGP race report
This race was most notable for the drama that went on before the start of the race, the extremely wet weather conditions the race was held in, Loris Capirossi's initial start from the pit lane despite starting from pole position and Sete Gibernau's battle with Max Biaggi for the victory.
After six rounds, Valentino Rossi still leads the title hunt with 135 points. Behind him in relative distance is Sete Gibernau with 88 and Max Biaggi with 85 points.
Before the start, there was drama as polesitter Loris Capirossi might have to start from the pitlane. He set a time of 1:59.770 but was still in the pit lane minutes before the start. Second on the grid is Max Biaggi, third is Valentino Rossi and fourth Carlos Checa. Completing the second row of the grid is fifth place Olivier Jacque, sixth place Alex Barros, seventh place Sete Gibernau and eighth place Marco Melandri. Kenny Roberts Jr. did not participate in the race due to a crash at the Italian race where he sustained tissue damage and had to miss both the Catalan and current round. Replacing him is Suzuki test rider Yukio Kagayama
There was further confusion as the race was initially classified as wet, but during the official sighting lap by the safety car, officials declared the track to be dry enough to start with slick tyres, thus declaring it a dry race minutes before the start. As all the riders did their usual sighting lap, it started to rain again and Rossi put his arm up in the air to signal that he did not want to start this way. As an act of defiance, he went into the pits and urged everyone to do likewise, following him to switch bikes on grounds of safety reasons. Mechanics quickly change the tyres on the bikes to put on the full wets, delaying the start.
As all the riders and mechanics were still preparing, the new race start was pushed back to 15:50 with the pit lane reopening at 15:40 for a total of five minutes. The officials declared that the race distance still remains 19 laps, which is the original race distance.
During the opening of the pit lane, some take off and do a sighting lap. Officials declared that they are allowed to do one sighting lap, followed by a grid formation and one warm-up before the start. During the sighting lap, one of the riders - Nobuatsu Aoki - got stuck in the gravel and couldn't get out.
After a relative period of waiting, all the riders line up on a now rain soaked grid and begin the warm-up lap. Because of the reshuffle and delayed start, Capirossi will start in pole position as usual. Aoki however does have to start from the pits because he could not make the start in time. The same thing happened to Aoki's teammate Jeremy McWilliams, meaning that both will have to start from the back of the grid.