The Qatar Grand Prix sprint partly undid the impact of the Grand Prix of the Americas at the top of the MotoGP standings - and was otherwise dictated by who went with the conventional choice of the medium rear tyre (good idea) and who rolled the dice on the soft rear (generally bad idea).
Sunday's race may yet turn today's winners into losers and losers into winners - but for now, here's who stood out in a good or bad way in the Lusail appetiser.
Winners - The Marquez brothers
Marc has a stronger claim to this entry than Alex, but ultimately both have come away from the sprint in the black.
“In a circuit where I marked on the calendar to defend, and I predict that my opponents marked to attack, at the moment we come back on the top of the championship - but now trying to control my emotions, because tomorrow is the most important day," Marquez summed up after winning the sprint from pole.
He saw his day as "completely unexpected" and felt he'd successfully exploited his ongoing advantage on used tyres - which bodes well for Sunday.
But his brother deserves credit for holding his own, too, wisely surrendering the fight for the win once he nearly crashed trying to copy Marc's line through Turn 2.
A seventh consecutive second-place finish isn't anyone's dream, but it's further evidence Alex’s performance this year is robust.
Loser - Pecco Bagnaia
That qualifying crash is a blip, performance-wise - and after Marc Marquez gifted him a 30-point title swing at COTA, it's hard to make too much of it.
But this continued underperformance while using a sprint-spec fuel tank is something Bagnaia blatantly cannot afford.
Sunday pays more but Bagnaia already showed last year that you can lose a title by losing the sprints, and the fact a poor grid position can leave him this exposed over a shorter race distance is an alarm bell ringing at full volume.
Winner - Fermin Aldeguer
Rookie Fermin Aldeguer had already impressed during the COTA weekend, but it was a strange grand prix and he didn't get the result over the line. Here he did - this was his coming-out party.
His late-race pace was pretty marvellous, his rear tyre clearly kept in exceptional shape relative to those around him - which must bode well for Sunday. Already here Aldeguer wondered whether, had he avoided being overtaken by Franco Morbidelli early on, he could've gone with his Gresini team-mate Alex Marquez and run a smooth race to, presumably, third.
But he also said he liked it this way - a race learning a bit more to fight and overtake. He'd struggled with race execution so far in his rookie season, and we'll see how tomorrow goes, but the flashes of the special talent Ducati believed in enough to commit to so early in 2024 are clearly on display.
Loser - KTM
A season that, whisper it, increasingly feels lost.
Considering the KTM RC16 has hardly been the model of tyre preservation in 2025, the fact three of its four riders went for the soft rear tyre - and predictably could not make it last - was frankly bewildering.
But if it's truly the case - as the riders are suggesting - that the medium won't have helped hugely because the bike's chatter issues are so debilitating, that's... even worse.
The question right now is a simple one. It's not 'can this bike ever catch Ducati?'. It's 'what is this bike actually good at?'.
Winner - Ai Ogura
Ai Ogura was disappointed with the "too much" 10-second gap to the front - but Aprilia and Trackhouse won't be.
The fact of the matter is, just four rounds into his MotoGP career Ogura is ridiculously dependable. He manages races in the way many seasoned veterans do not, and already looks like a rider every manufacturer should want - on a fully-fledged manufacturer deal - at the expiry of his current two-year deal.
Loser - Honda
It was a bad day for Honda. After appearing to make progress last time out in America, with factory rider Luca Marini finishing eighth in both the sprint and the grand prix, Saturday in Qatar brought a far gloomier outlook.
The first blow was Joan Mir, who'd looked fast on Friday, being ruled out of the sprint due to gastroenteritis - though he may yet make Sunday's race.
For those who did run the sprint, it was tough. Marini finished 15th as the best Honda representative, 15.5 seconds off winner Marc Marquez, with LCR Honda rider Somkiat Chantra in last, 31s off the pace.
And Johann Zarco's good qualifying was undone by that soft rear tyre choice, after which he “preferred to go back to the box instead of crashing and getting injured".
Both Marini and Zarco identified a serious rear vibration issue as a fundamental limitation. Zarco said he had just two good laps before the issue worsened and spiralled out of control.
The pair are hoping there is something which can be fixed for tomorrow’s 22-lap grand prix, with Zarco still eyeing a bid for the top six.
Winner - Fabio Quartararo
Fabio Quartararo threw caution to the wind in a crazy pursuit of third place on the final lap, and cost himself fourth in the process.
But... whatever. That Yamaha had no business being that far up the road to begin with, which is true for every non-Desmosedici bike on the grid.
His Q2 lap, without using any other rider as reference, was a tour de force - and Quartararo feels it's been "a really long time" since he's last uncorked one this good - and overall the performance is positive, even if he warned that "the track suits really well the bike" and that it will be tougher over a longer distance.
But "maybe we will have a surprise tomorrow like we did on the qualifying".
Loser - Jack Miller
Jack Miller's bet on the soft rear tyre raised an eyebrow or two among The Race's team, given that he's not exactly known as MotoGP's pre-eminent tyre whisperer.
Of course, the rider and his Pramac Yamaha crew have more information, so know better. But this time they clearly really really didn't.
"Piss-poor decision by myself," owned up Miller. "I thought I'd get maybe eight-nine laps [of good grip], I got about four, out of the old soft. But I gave it a crack. We had to throw something at it.
"It was going to be touch and go. I did a run yesterday arvo [afternoon], I knew it was going to be a slog at the end there - but I didn't realise it was going to be that bad. She kind of fell off a cliff pretty early. It's just that compound with the cooler temperature, it don't like it very much."
Loser - Fabio Di Giannantonio
Sixth is OK, but it feels like Fabio Di Giannantonio just isn't quite making the most of a track where he should be up there with the Marquez brothers.
It could change on Sunday, because his pace longevity was impressive - and it was again the early laps that dragged him down. But that increasingly feels like a trend in 2025, and it's not an 'affordable' problem to have.
According to Di Giannantonio, the culprit this time, and other times too, was a shortcoming in the second phase of the start - an electronics matter. He then had a "really strange, quite dangerous" feeling on the rear - but felt he mitigated it well.
"We have a super potential to be there [tomorrow], trying to fight for the podium - but also it gives me a little bit of anger, because today we completely f***ed up the race. We know what happened but we need to understand how not to repeat it."
