A title race points swing in the high single digits, a further tightening of McLaren's stronghold on the drivers' championship and some curious midfield points-scoring.
There was a lot of consequence unfolding in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix once it finally got underway, with inters-to-slicks timing playing its part again - and some drivers having premium opportunities snatched away from them.
Here is our list of the winners and losers from the Spa-Francorchamps main event.
Winner - Oscar Piastri
Piastri's dominant form in dry sprint qualifying on Friday suggested it would be a disappointment for his weekend to end in anything other than a grand prix win - and that's where it ended up, though it sure took a roundabout route.
Against a team-mate who in previous iterations of the McLaren F1 car had a reputation for strong performances in wet conditions - don't forget, Lando Norris probably should've 'won' the aborted 2021 Belgian GP by claiming pole position - Piastri pounced at the start and was the furthest ahead in terms of pace when the conditions were at their sketchiest.
He was very good value for the win and his 16-point lead is probably on the lower end of what he deserves at this point in the season. - Valentin Khorounzhiy
Loser - Lando Norris
There will be plenty of disagreement over how at fault Norris really was for converting pole into a mere second place at Spa.
He said a lack of battery power wasn’t decisive on the first lap. Piastri just got a great run to make it past - something Piastri had been on the receiving end of the day before in the sprint.
Three mistakes adding up to over four seconds in the second half of the race felt decisive - but again, was that the deficit of a hard tyre compared to the medium Piastri had? Or Norris pushing too hard or not being at Piastri’s level? Being second on the road meant he had to do another lap before pitting, which cost him over six seconds and then those late mistakes came while he was pushing to alleviate that.
Fundamentally, he turned a pole into second place and that’s a loss however you look at it. - Jack Benyon
Winner - Charles Leclerc
You might look at the result and think ‘the hard work was done in qualifying’, but that would understate the drive Leclerc delivered on Sunday.
Boosted by the track drying quickly and keeping a set-up leaning towards the dry conditions, his biggest challenge was fighting off Max Verstappen in the early stages while it was wet. Such was his defence that the gap to Norris ahead reached almost 10 seconds as Leclerc parked his Ferrari on the apexes.
But it worked, and a clean stop combined with Verstappen losing time in the pitstop phase gave Leclerc a cushion he was able to manage to the finish.
Four podiums from six races for Leclerc, all in a weekend where Lewis Hamilton struggled right up until the race where he rebound did make up 11 spots to finish seventh. - JB
Loser - Yuki Tsunoda
What was looking like a timely pick-me-up weekend for Tsunoda was undone in some apparent strategic indecision, as the Japanese driver revealed he was called in for his sole pistop just as he went past pit entry.
Red Bull may have hesitated on whether to double-stack pitstops or not on that lap, but it could have scarcely been worse than how the race turned out. An extra lap on inters in the dry sent Tsunoda into the thick of the midfield, from which he never emerged, lacking straightline speed.
His pace was never at Verstappen's level or anywhere near even in the brief moments that he'd spent in clean air, but it was certainly enough to end his point-less streak, now up to six rounds, had he kept track position. - VK
Winner - Alex Albon
Albon has three fifth-place finishes this year so finishing sixth isn’t revolutionary, but it was an excellent drive.
He did concede fifth to George Russell’s Mercedes early on, and after the pitstops he had a charging Hamilton for company.
Hamilton closed in, attacked, backed off, closed in and attacked again. It was relentless for well over half of the race.
While his team-mate struggled, Albon demonstrated the value of his ace qualifying, which put him in position to execute on Sunday. - JB
Loser - Isack Hadjar
After a decent weekend, Isack Hadjar and his Racing Bulls car were suddenly the slowest combination by far mid-race - which Hadjar revealed afterwards was due to a problem that "made me not competitive".
Alarm bells had rung already as Liam Lawson closed in and overtook him, and though strategy didn't work out, it was in any case an irrelevance given the performance in the car.
Hadjar didn't specify what the issue was, but said it was very obvious from inside the car. It came in handy that his barren run of non-scores had ended on Saturday already in the sprint. - VK
Winner - Liam Lawson
Lawson's qualifying track record against a rookie team-mate (though he himself is more a rookie than not), but he's had a few really handy drives as of late - and this was another.
He seemed to identify early on where his race was at and ran that race more or less to perfection, admitting afterwards he drove to the pace of the cars behind as he brought home a valuable points finish. - VK
Loser - Haas
"We had the pace today to score with both cars. The pace was there," lamented Esteban Ocon.
On his end, the way-too-late pitstop was ruinous - and he was also bewildered to have spent his race-closing stint on a medium on a previously-used tyre, though the grand prix was never going to be salvageable even had he had the freshest of slicks at his disposal.
On Ollie Bearman's side the strategy looked suboptimal, too, though points should still have been readily available - only for his engine to briefly go into "limp mode" out of the Bus Stop chicane after the pitstop, dropping him three places and rendering a top-10 finish mission impossible.
Winner - Gabriel Bortoleto
Bortoleto has been one of the underrated rookies of the season.
He looked like being eliminated in Q1 on Saturday after a lap of small errors, but Hamilton’s track limits penalty gave Bortoleto a second chance - and he duly capitalised.
Racing from a Q3 starting spot, he picked up a place in the pitstop phase and was then given preference over Nico Hulkenberg - who moved over to let Bortoleto by to go and have a crack at Lawson.
Bortoleto got closer than Hulkenberg did but was stuck behind - but ninth is his second points finish and he didn’t look out of place there at all. - JB
Loser - Nico Hulkenberg
After the high of Silverstone this was a disappointing weekend for Hulkenberg.
He was beaten by Bortoleto in sprint qualifying, the sprint, actual qualifying for the race and then the race, even having to move aside under orders from the team to let Bortoleto through.
Bortoleto had a great weekend and has been strong this year, but Hulkenberg shouldn’t have been so clearly second-best here. - JB
Winner - Pierre Gasly
After a water leak cost him an eighth-place start and likely points in the sprint, Gasly rebounded to take a point back in the race.
He may have been helped by an engine issue for Bearman in the second half of the race, and Tsunoda's poor staightline speed versus his super-low downforce spec, to hold off what should have been two faster cars.
He reckoned he was "probably on the skinniest rear wing of the grid".
Once again, Gasly is showing why he is one of the stars of 2025 as his team-mate Franco Colapinto was largely anonymous other than when being overtaken by people. - JB
Loser - Carlos Sainz
Starting from the pits certainly didn’t help Sainz, but Hamilton made up 11 spots from there so gains were clearly possible.
But Sainz was on the back foot after the team, having spotted a set-up error after qualifying, elected for a pitlane start to use the opportunity to put a high-downforce rear wing on.
The race stayed dry and he was consigned to a struggle.
Still, he should have benefitted from pitting on the same lap as Hamilton, undercutting their rivals, only to suffer a slow stop. - JB
Loser - Aston Martin
The sight of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll dicing for second-to-last place in that early stint pointed to a predictably difficult afternoon for Aston Martin, whose weekend has been dreadful.
Alonso's early stop for slicks - made out of necessity rather than gambling, he says, as his inters had cried enough - livened up the team's race briefly, but the car had been set up for a wet grand prix so looked about as competitive in the dry as... well, as it had looked all weekend anyway. - VK
