This was a race which had everything. For the first time the Daytona Prototypes were beaten at Daytona by a Le Mans-style P2 machine and Corvette Racing put on a show which resulted in one of the closest finishes in sportscar history.

Since the merger of the American Le Mans Series and the Grand-Am Rolex Series in 2014, the P2-machines have shown flashes of race winning speed and now the team which was the first to take P2 prototype to victory lane – Patrón Racing ESM – backed that up with a brilliant overall victory in the biggest race of the year.

Corvette Racing not only defended their victory in the GTLM class from last year – they took the win against an even tougher field which included three brand new state-of-the-art cars, a new manufacturer desperate for success and the reigning series champions who were untouchable in the second half of 2015.

But what’s more – it came down to a battle between both of their cars and they did what many traditionalists think was madness … they risked everything by letting their guys fight it out to an incredible finish which resulted in a margin of only .034 of a second. A checkered flag which looked more like the end of the Daytona 500 rather than the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Prototype victory also unearthed a new star in Brazilian Pipo Derani. A FIA World Endurance Championship regular last year, Derani joined the Patrón squad for his first race and combined with Scott Sharp, Ed Brown and Johannes van Overbeek to take the overall win.

The Corvette battle was settled in favor of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler but Gavin had to pull out an incredible drive to keep “The Closer” Antonio Garcia behind him at the finish. Garcia came so close to repeating the 2015 win he shared with Jan Magnussen while the Fassler’s fellow “Audi loaner” Mike Rockenfeller starred in his GTLM class debut.

Other class victories went to Kenton Koch, Stephen Simpson, Chris Miller and Misha Goikhberg with JDC-Miller Motorsports in a survival of the fittest PC class battle and Rene Rast, Andy Lally, Jon Potter and Marco Seyfried in the hard-fought GTD division.

More details on an amazing race to follow soon.