This year's Rolex 24 at Daytona was one of the most anticipated races in a long, largely due to the presence of the re-born Ford GT program, courtesy of Markham, Ontario's Multimatic.

This year's race saw the fewest number of Canadians participating in a number of years, down to 7 from 12 last year and 15 in 2014. Out of the 7, 3 were in the Prototype Challenge class, and all 3 had a legitimate chance to take the class win.

Unfortunately for the PC class, all cars ran into trouble throughout the race, some to a greater degree than others. With the torrential rains, the CORE autosport team, with Mark Wilkins aboard, opted to sit out qualifying and take their chances moving up from the back in the race, rather than chance damage to the car in the qualifying conditions.

It looked like a great move when Mark Wilkins took over the driving after a quad stint from Jonathan Bennett. Wilkins started his stint in 8th place in class and put on a show that proves what an talent he really is, probably the most under rated Canadian drivers who truly deserves a top ride in 2016. After taking over the car in 8th and last place in class, Wilkins promptly drove the car to the front of the class on sheer speed, only to have the engine let go near the end of his third stint. Wilkins, as usual, was blindingly fast and exceptionally clean and had the team on pace to win the Prototype Challenge class. Sadly, they were out before the halfway point.

While CORE autosport chose to sit out the qualifying session, the Starworks Motorsport team, with Chris Cumming in their team, chose to take their chances in the weather, and qualified 4th. Cumming's chances at the podium came to an abrupt end early in the night sessions when Cumming came to halt in

the middle of turn 1 near the end of the 4th hour. As IMSA opted for a local yellow only, Cumming sat precariously in the middle of the track while cars snaked past left and right, but all were managing to get by.

Unfortunately the Delta Wing, which led early in a great performance by Katherine Legge and now with Andy Meyrick at the wheel, didn't and drilled the PC car square in the back. The Delta Wing was done, while the Starworks team went to work on the #8 and managed to get the car back on track, eventually finishing 4th in class, 34th overall, albeit 51 laps off lead, and 17 laps off the PC winners.

The PC class winner was the JDC Miller Motorsport team, including the only Canadian winner Mikhail Goikhberg, like all PC cars, ran in to their share of trouble on route to victory.

The team qualified 2nd, and jumped almost immediately into the lead with Stephen Simpson at the wheel. The team looked poised to walk away with the race as the rest of the PC crowd ran into troubles. However, defending IMSA Lites champ Kenton Koch went off in the 15th hour, clobbering the turn 6 barrier on cold tires. The team spent 10 laps in the pits making repairs and didn't seem to have the same speed after the repairs as they did before, but had enough speed and a big enough lead to take home the watches.

It was in the night when we got a surprise in seeing Kyle Marcelli, a very late addition to the Performance Tech PC team, getting into the #38. Unfortunately in more PC attrition, after only a few laps, Marcelli was into the pits with transmission issues, sadly his race was done.

The GTLM class had a pair of Canadian drivers, DTM star Bruno Spengler and sports car ace Kuno Wittmer, both in the BMW Team RLL BMW M6's, Spengler in the #25, Wittmer in the #100.

Bad luck struck the #25 car early, with Bill Auberlen suffering a puncture, and losing a lap limping to the pits for repairs. While the team did manage to get the lap back through the night, they never seemed in contention for the win afterwards. They did manage to run in a podium position from time to time as the pit stops played out, but eventually finished 5th in class, which seems about right.

The sister #100 car was running better well into the night when disaster struck, with Lucas Luhr at the wheel. What's believed to be a right front brake disc failure caused a big crash, with Luhr taking 2 or 3 big hits in the process. The #100 was out on the spot and the #25 was into the pits shortly after for a brake change. A second brake change in the early morning really kept the #25 from serious contention.

Th other Canadian story in GTLM was the return of the Markham, Ontario Mulitmatic built Ford GT. Unfortunately, things went badly for the team almost immediately, with both cars suffering gearbox problems before the race was 25 laps old. That left the cars too far down to compete, but kept rolling and did make it to the finish, with the #66 car down 47 laps overall, and 32 laps to the GTLM winner.

The GTD class, as usual, was fast and furious, with what seemed to be every car taking the lead of the class at some point in the race. The only Canadian in the field was Paul Dalla Lana in the Aston Martin Vantage. From the pace shown at the Roar, it looked like the Aston didn't have the speed to win the class, but surprisingly worked it's way to the front over the first 6 hours of the race and stayed in contact with the leaders all race, and led for a period over night. Ultimately the team just missed the podium, finishing 4th in class, 1 lap down to the class leaders.

For me, the biggest take-away from this year's event came in the Prototype class with the tremendous performance by Lance Stroll. Considering the reputation he came in with, and his less then stellar debut at the Roar, Stroll was very impressive in the race itself. At times he was the fastest prototype driver on the track, and he was always very consistent, from lap to lap and from session to session.

The team ran on the lead lap for most of the race, until the car went to the garage for "a quick check up" according to the team. They came back out 4 laps down, and eventually finished in 5th place, as the top placing Ganassi car.

The driving ability in IMSA may not be Formula 1 calibre, but it's still pretty damn good, especially when you add in the likes of Scott Dixon and Tony Kaanan, and at just 17 years old, Stroll proved he deserves to be out there with them, and that can run successfully, in elite company.

If it turns out Stroll can't find a home in F1, let's hope this bodes well for a ride with Chip's IndyCar team.

A lot of commentary regarding the Prototype class during the broadcast was about how IMSA has the balance of power correct now, as we saw all types of cars leading the race, P2's DP's and the Delta Wing. While this is true they all did lead, the MSR Ligier P2 car was able to get to the front (even after drilling the P2 car of eventual winner Extreme Speed Motorsports early in the race) with relative ease, and check out comfortably every time it got there. Had the Honda engine not expired through the night, we might not be talking about the BoP quite so glowingly. We'll have to wait to Sebring to get another look at how close IMSA got the BoP, but at least it seems they have it closer now than at any time since the merger.

Next up is Sebring, in about 6 weeks time, and I'm sure both Ford and BMW will be chomping at the bit to get another shot at the Corvette's, who's 1-2 maybe wasn't quite as dominating as the finishing order would suggest. The BoP question may become a littler clearer and we can only hope for a finish across all classes (OK, except the PC class, we'll hope for better for all of them) as good as we saw in Daytona.