The Australian, who made a good start from seventh on the grid, managed to save a high-side on the second corner, however causing him to lose several position and damage his bike's fairing.
But the ex-Superbike rider had a strong run through the field and recovered several position to finish in fifth place.
"I got a good start and, although I got pushed a bit wide in the first turn, I still thought I'd hold on to my position," he said.
"But as I entered turn two the rear tyre was just not warm enough and I had a big slide. I thought it was all over then, but luckily I landed back on the bike and although I smashed the fairing with my leg no harm was done.
"I didn't quite have the pace that I have had this weekend which was probably due to the higher temperatures, and we certainly slid around a bit more today.
"This is the first time we have raced with the new chassis and with the new construction front tyre that Bridgestone brought here for us, so with all things considered - and from where I ended the first lap - I think we had a good race.
"The tyres worked especially well and I did my fastest time on lap 25 out of the 28 - it was just a shame I wasn't with the front group from the beginning or things might have been very different."
Capirossi, on his record-breaking 277th Grand Prix race, struggled with set-up problems throughout the weekend and was forced to start the race with a new front tyre.
The veteran Italian lacked the right feeling in the tyre at the beginning of the race, but as it got better he was able to fight with the rest of the field.
The Imola-born rider got in a last-lap dice with Tech 3 Yamaha's James Toseland, but couldn't make his move on the Briton stick and had to settle for seventh at the flag.
"It has been quite a hard weekend for me as we have been working a lot on the new chassis and getting it right," said Capirossi.
"I really want to thank my team as they have all worked so hard to get it the best it can be. I think maybe we changed too many things on the bike and lost our way a bit, but at the end the bike seemed to work ok.
"This morning during warm-up we went back a bit and then on the grid I had to change my front tyre and had to start with a new one that didn't have the right feeling to start with. The tyre soon got better and in the end I didn't go too badly.
"I made a big fight on the last lap and tried to overtake, but I made a little mistake and couldn't quite hold it, but for my 277th Grand Prix it was not too bad."
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