 Daryl Beattie wasn't able to come back from head injuries and retired at the end of the year while Anthony Gobert failed a drug test and was dismissed by the Suzuki team.The Elf team soldiered on with their Swiss-Auto V4 but Aprilia decided to pull their V twin from the 500 class at the end of the year.Max Biaggi had a harder time defending his title from Tetsuya Harada and Ralf Waldmann, not clinching the title until the last race of the year.