Collisions, penalties, further fluctuations in the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship and a driver’s five-year relationship with a team that suddenly ended prematurely after a first corner incident – the Qatar Grand Prix was quite an eventful one.

Here’s our pick of the big winners and losers.

LOSER: ESTEBAN OCON

Esteban Ocon had little leeway when a fully committed Nico Hülkenberg went completely wrong at Turn 1 on the first lap and an incident broke out between them and Franco Colapinto.

Actually, one could take the glass-half-empty approach and question why Ocon was at the back of the grid, an incredible nine-tenths of a second behind his teammate Pierre Gasly in an almost identical Alpine, but Ocon has little to counter the explanation. His team thinks the car is fine and he clearly feels something is wrong.

And – most painfully – this non-event will likely be Ocon and Alpine’s last race together.

There have been good times, like his win in Hungary in 2021, which was absolutely remarkable, and even his second place in Brazil two races ago.

But that feels more like two decades ago, as Ocon was clearly not happy with the car in the final dry races and was let down by Gasly – who will now have a new team-mate next weekend. -Jack Benyon

WINNER: CLEAN AND ZHOU

Only Lando Norris’ late attack on the finish line prevented Sauber from scoring a double point, but Zhou Guanyu was the one who scored Sauber’s first four points of the year.

He is the driver who has suffered the most from the team’s problems this season and his Formula 1 racing career is coming to an end, while Valtteri Bottas may still get a reprieve, even if it is not until 2026.

Zhou had started the race twelfth and a number of riders fighting to the front meant his race didn’t have to be perfect. But he was still able to do overtaking maneuvers and the car looked like it belonged in Formula 1 rather than Formula 2 – which didn’t always feel that way this year.

Bottas fought his way up to 10th with a tough battle against Alex Albon but, typical of his year, it didn’t matter and Norris stormed past, meaning Bottas could end the year in a 20-car championship could finish in 23rd place.

But there are signs of life at Sauber and today it’s time to celebrate. -JB

LOSER: MCLAREN

That should have been a second and a third in the race, and the constructors’ championship would have been all but tied, not just in terms of starting positions, but also since Lando Norris’s early overtaking of George Russell and Carlos Sainz’s puncture.

But Oscar Piastri couldn’t get past Charles Leclerc into second place after losing time due to the safety car and pit stops, and Norris made the mistake of attacking Max Verstappen from the outside – how well that worked for you this year, Lando? – and then failed to slow down under yellow, which earned a 10-second stop-and-go penalty.

There are still 21 points up for grabs in the manufacturers’ battle, but the track was supposed to be a “McLaren” track and instead it was surpassed by its rival. -JB

WINNER: MAX VERSTAPPEN

He was obviously motivated by falling from pole to second place in qualifying by driving unnecessarily slowly and hindering Russell.

In fact, it felt like Max Verstappen would simply reclaim that spot through sheer force of will and offense, and he did so right from the start.

He actually came under pressure from Norris and pushed him past the gate pretty hard in Turn 1, but the stewards didn’t see it as a problem and he made no mistake on the way to his 63rd win.

It was an incredible turnaround for a team that was eight tenths behind in sprint qualifying, and a “miracle” made its “rally car” the best challenger.

Long live the unpredictability of Formula 1 in 2024. -JB

LOSER: MERCEDES

It was a sad race for Lewis Hamilton and only fourth place in a race where he started from pole was not good for Russell.

Hamilton had a jump start, for which he received a penalty, had a puncture and then appeared to forget to turn on the speed limiter in the pit lane, which earned him a penalty, and then wanted to park his car and put an end to the pain.

It’s somewhat ironic that the only reason he wasn’t able to retire immediately was because he would have had to take a penalty in Abu Dhabi at the weekend.

Russell lost first and second place in the first few corners and never really seemed to strive to regain those positions. A slow first pit stop set him well back and he was furious when he pitted for a second set of hard tires instead of a softer compound. A late penalty for failing to maintain distance from the safety car was another setback, but ultimately did not cost him his place.

Just a week after that fantastic double victory in Las Vegas, neither the team nor its drivers have managed the race well, and there is no doubt that the season cannot end quickly enough for everyone at Mercedes. -JB

WINNER: PIERRE GASLY

Fifth place on a miserable weekend for his Alpine teammate Ocon. Pierre Gasly put Alpine pretty far ahead this weekend, jumping from 11th to fifth place.

Certainly there was luck for others in the form of (suspected) punctures, but Gasly was by far the best midfielder, and he proved it with a great move on Yuki Tsunoda and a good move on Kevin Magnussen – both of which were driving for Alpine’s main constructor rivals in championship position.

Gasly also shrugged off requests to lift and coast – something confusing given the safety cars and which should have helped VSC Alpine save fuel – and beat Sainz to fifth.

Considering how Alpine started the season, they should be thrilled with the end of the season, and Gasly should be too. – Samarth Canal

LOSER: SERGIO PEREZ

Being almost a second slower than your teammate in the first stint of a race is not an advantage.

Sergio Perez just couldn’t handle the Red Bull and then lost his grip as his engine started and he went into a spin in Qatar.

Red Bull is now out of the Constructors’ Championship title hunt and it was another weekend with just one car in play.

It may not have been Perez’s fault, but he didn’t cause any problems for McLaren or Ferrari today. With Verstappen putting in another brilliant performance, the contrast between Red Bull’s drivers is as stark as ever. – SK

WINNER: FERRARI

It would take the world’s largest pendulum to show Ferrari teetering between winner and loser in this race, but in the end it gets the nod because it outperforms its World Constructors’ Championship rival McLaren, even though it could well have been beaten .

It was Norris’ 10-second stop-and-go penalty that was the icing on the cake, preventing McLaren from finishing ahead of the Ferraris with both cars even before Sainz’s puncture forced him into a comeback .

Leclerc’s lead over Piastri was a further boost, and even Norris’ comeback to 10th place and fastest lap couldn’t stop the Prancing Horse from taking the lead from him.

21 points is a big gap, but it’s still a chance because at the start of the race it looked like McLaren would keep the constructors at bay. -JB

LOSER: WILLIAMS

What a terrible few weeks for Franco Colapinto. A series of crashes led to him traveling to Qatar with a different specification to Alex Albon and then only being able to qualify 19th.

And then today another crash. This wasn’t Colapinto’s fault – it was a chain reaction that was triggered when Hülkenberg suddenly oversteered in Turn 1. Actually forgivable, but an incident that now causes Williams even more headaches as he looks for replacement tires and gets the car to the finish, putting the team under more pressure.

Albon was also penalized for clashing wheels with Kevin Magnussen and finished last – another pointless weekend for a team in no man’s land at the end of the season. – SK

WINNER: FERNANDO ALONSO

If you noticed Fernando Alonso in the first half of the Qatar GP, it was because he was overtaken, went off the track or groaned on the team radio.

In the end he achieved a decent seventh place.

In terms of pace, this wasn’t a bad weekend for Aston Martin – although, as Alonso admitted, that only means catching up with Alpine and Haas, as the company had started the year with much higher goals.

But with another fifth place in the constructors’ championship, unless Alpine pulls off a miracle in Abu Dhabi, some flashes of pace (from Alonso) and a first points finish for the team since Singapore in September, that’s a bit of late-season encouragement. -Matt Beer

LOSER: RB

The RB wasn’t particularly good this weekend, the bet on soft tires towards the end of the race really didn’t pay off and there was a bit of bad luck too, with Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson only finishing 13th and 13th respectively.

But as Red Bull desperately wonders who it can replace Perez with after dashing its hopes of defending its constructors’ title, it must be a grim experience watching Perez’s most likely successors, RB, drop from sixth to eighth in the overall ranking. -M.B