Some starring midfield drivers were able to upset the top teams in sprint qualifying at Formula 1's United States Grand Prix.
Here's our picks for the key winners and losers from Friday at Austin.
Loser: Oscar Piastri (3rd)
Piastri is only one place behind his primary title rival Lando Norris, but it's more the gap to Norris (0.309 seconds) that will trouble Piastri.
Especially given this has been one of Piastri's weakest tracks historically and one he'd put a lot of effort into rectifying - even completing a Testing of Previous Cars day at Austin as part of that.
Given he's done it time and time again, there's still every chance Piastri will turn up on Saturday and be right on pace with Norris, but it just adds pressure to the first proper wobble Piastri's having this season. - Josh Suttill
Winner: Max Verstappen (1st)
It's not for the big points but, boy, it's a good way for Max Verstappen and Red Bull to start the weekend.
And actually it's in the context of pole position rival Norris's performance so far at Austin where Verstappen's pole lap stands out. Norris has appeared to have around three tenths on team-mate and championship leader Piastri this weekend, and that remained the case in SQ3, so Verstappen's lap to beat him really does stand up.
Verstappen is trying really hard to show disinterest in talk about his title chances. Might this be the first sign that there really is something still to play for? - Jack Cozens
Loser: Ferrari (8th and 10th)
Getting both cars into SQ3 after a close shave in SQ2 (and for Charles Leclerc in SQ1 before that) looked like a decent save for Ferrari. Maybe even a chance to reset.
But in the end that was basically its ceiling.
OK, Leclerc was short on track time after sitting out the late-FP1 qualifying simulations, but he looked all at sea at a track where he won last year. Perhaps that's the most sobering takeaway about Ferrari's current standing.
Yes, a big slip-up was avoided. But that doesn't make the SQ3 result any less underwhelming. - JC
Winner: Nico Hulkenberg (4th)
Second in practice and fifth in SQ1 and SQ2 while his team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto went out at the first chance, this was a stunning day for Hulkenberg.
It's no secret Bortoleto has turned up the pressure on Hulkenberg in recent months and Singapore pointed to an improvement - his best qualifying of the year in 11th - but he's properly backed up that breakthrough at Austin so far.
Seriously: he was two tenths quicker than George Russell, the winner of the last F1 race, and short of a small wobble at Turn 1 and the fact that he went out early in the session, it's hard to see where Russell might have closed the gap. Even Russell called Hulkenberg's lap "amazing".
Remember when people were worrying about Audi having to take over this Sauber team? In recent years, that may have been the case, but probably not now.
Last year at this race, its best session result was 17th! Sauber's come a long way since then. - Jack Benyon
Loser: Yuki Tsunoda (18th)
Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies was quick to apologise to Tsunoda after sprint qualifying for the poor timing of his second SQ1 run.
And while Tsunoda can be aggrieved by that timing, he simply wasn't fast enough after the first run. He was 1.119s slower than team-mate (and eventual polesitter) Verstappen, which put him in the danger zone for the typical end-of-Q1 traffic jam.
It couldn't be worse-timed, either, with Red Bull's 2026 seats decision imminent. - JS
Winner: Fernando Alonso (6th)
Hulkenberg's heroics mean Alonso's sixth place - a quarter of a second further back - is a little overshadowed.
But the performance level Hulkenberg's unlocked from the Sauber hasn't really seemed in range for anyone else in the midfield from the small sample set so far at Austin, so Alonso's lap shouldn't be overlooked.
He appeared to be in a marginal fight with the Williams drivers so nailing the final run on softs was always going to be crucial - and, on a day where something just clearly wasn't right with the Ferrari, doing so might well have accounted for four positions on the sprint race grid.
Alonso was rapid in the middle sector - you know, the one with the long straight - too in SQ3, only a fraction off what Norris and Verstappen managed. That surely bodes well for the sprint race itself. - JC
Loser: Haas's upgrade debut (16th and 19th)
A double SQ1 exit wasn't the best way for Haas to debut its upgraded VF-25 with Ollie Bearman 16th and Esteban Ocon 19th.
Neither driver made it across the line for their final SQ1 runs, so both had to rely on their less-than-ideal first SQ1 runs: Bearman was cautious in anticipation that he'd get another lap, while Ocon had a big moment at Turn 1 when he lost the rear end.
Team boss Ayao Komatsu admitted that "in hindsight, we should’ve taken more margin to make it through", with Bearman also suffering a GPS issue and Ocon saying the sprint race would now "be an experiment" to learn more about the upgrade. - JS
Winner: Pierre Gasly (13th)
You have to mitigate this slightly because basically every car that went out in SQ1 had some variation of an omnishambles, but surely Gasly had no right being 13th in the Alpine here?
And many of those drivers who went out in SQ1 got in traffic and/or had laps deleted through mistakes of their own or their team's making. Gasly appeared flawless here.
He was only a tenth quicker than team-mate Franco Colapinto, but that tenth was the difference in two positions in SQ1 and was delivered at the very last attempt as one of the last drivers setting a time in the session.
His SQ2 lap bettered Lance Stroll's by half a tenth and also put him ahead of Liam Lawson, who couldn't set a legal laptime.
More mistakes from other drivers, but still excellent execution from Gasly and an Alpine car that has been written off, even to some extent by its drivers. He said changing some parts it found weren't helping in recent races made a difference. - JB
Loser: Mercedes (5th and 11th)
I'm sorry, but to win the previous race and then get outqualified by two tenths by a Sauber in the next one is just not good enough for a team of Mercedes' stature and whatever the circumstance, culminates in taking the 'L' as the kids would have said about 20 years ago.
Kimi Antonelli was bumped out of SQ2 after his last flying lap wasn't much of an improvement - he complained of two big instances of brake locking and his cooling vest broke - and both Ferraris bumped him out.
Russell also didn't look completely happy here, and a wobble at Turn 1 undid his lap.
Admittedly, that wobble, combined with going early in the session and missing out on the later track evolution, does provide Russell with some mitigating circumstances. And he reckons the team's high-speed corner woes will be mitigated in the race where the car will be going a bit slower and running a bit higher, consequently.
Even with those mitigations, it's the end result that counts. And Mercedes has been outqualified by a car that hasn't started any better than seventh anywhere else this season. - JB
