1. Execution: In the era of Balance of Performance (and for that matter, spec racing in general), speed alone doesn't win races anymore. Sure, execution and reliability have always been a key part of racing, especially endurance racing, but never like it is in today's form of motorsports.

It should be no surprise the masters of execution -- Penske Motorsports -- are starting to dominate IMSA and WEC. They continue to excel in Indy car. And are always in contention in NASCAR. They won championships in all those series last year. And they just won their second Rolex 24 in a row.

There were a number of wins in IMSA and WEC last year where the BoP was not favorable to them. But, other teams failed to take advantage, running into various problems. Penske was more than happy to "steal" those wins.

The master of execution and process is thriving in sportscar racing. Interestingly, with all the amazing success Roger Penske has had, including wins in Formula 1, he has never won Le Mans. Will this finally be the year?

2. Blocking: There's blocking. And then there's blocking. And what Augusto Farfus did with his BMW M4 GT3 EVO against Tommy Milner in the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R was way beyond the line.

IMSA does not have the blue flag rule which Formula 1 has, in that IMSA's blue flag is informational, not a command. Which is a good thing. But that doesn't mean there aren't blocking rules.

It's one thing to pull the type of blocking Michael Schumacher and Max Verstappen are known for. Or even what Sergio Perez did against Lewis Hamilton in Abu Dhabi, 2021, which played a key role in setting up the crazy ending and ultimately Verstappen's championship. In all those cases, they were all fights for position.

Even hard, aggressive, physical racing for position, especially the lead late in the race, like in GTD Pro at Daytona in 2022, sometimes has the officials allowing them to play. Agree or not where the line is, most can still understand some leniency when both are fighting for the same piece of turf.

But when you're a billion laps down, purposely slow for the leaders to catch up, move under braking, and virtually stop in corners to slow the car behind you in order for your team car to catch that car, that as Milner said, is "not what IMSA's about." You're not racing for anything. Your only goal is to block for blocking sake.

Farfus went way beyond any sort of sportsmanship in helping a teammate. And IMSA should have come down on him much more severely. Though, Milner flipping the bird to Farfus at 180 mph was the highlight of the race.

3. Disappointments. There are always plenty of disappointments in a race, especially a 24-hour race with a large field. After all, not everyone can win. But this year, there seemed to be more than the usual heartbreaks.

Perhaps on top of that list was the GTP #63 Lamborghini SC63. They had a steller lineup: two former F1 drivers (Romain Grosjean and Daniil Kvyat) and the current Formula E points leader, Edoardo Mortara.

Mirko Bortolotti qualified the car, so he had to start it. Almost immediately, it started to suffer water heating issues. After 34 laps, they were forced to drop out. Grosjean, Kvyat, and Mortara made a lot of money ... for doing nothing.

The GTD Trackhouse car also had an exciting lineup. The two Kiwi Supercar rivals who are making a name for themselves in American racing, Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin, along with teenage phenom Connor Zilisch, as well as perhaps the best Bronze driver in the field, Ben Keating. Despite some exciting stints, a crash put them behind and they never fully recovered. Their Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R ended up ninth, a lap down from the class leaders.

Then there's Jack Aitken, who put in a phenomenal stint early in the night, only to have his GTP Cadillac V-Series.R suffer mechanical woes, which put them 50 laps behind the winner. And of course, there's always the super exciting Kamui Kobayashi, but his Cadillac V-Series.R suffered a mechanical failure with Louis Deletraz driving which caused a massive crash on the banking.

The LMP2 class was nothing but a series of disappointments for numerous teams, as it was a class which seemingly nobody wanted to win. Teams with comfortable leads kept falling by the wayside.

Lobotomy of the Race Award: Whoever decided to redesign the curbing at the Le Mans chicane. Yeah, we get that they had to remove the grass as it was a safety issue for the NASCAR series. But, were they really concerned with all that pavement cars would constantly go out of bounds?

Nothing from previous races appeared to give that indication. And small "movable" tire walls could have acted as a hindrance. Sure, it's the same for everyone, and drivers need to adjust. But circumstances sometimes make hopping them unavoidable.

Instead we got a rash of suspension failures and DNFs apparently caused by the harshness of the curbs. And that was its own safety issue as the #40 Cadillac suffered a huge hit against the wall at high speed when the suspension suddenly let go.

The change wasn't necessary. Unless you had a lobotomy.

Special Mention: A lot of special mentions are deserved. There's the Ford Multimatic Motorsports team. Two years ago, their Ford Mustang GT3 didn't exist. It debuted just a year ago. Now, they are Rolex 24 winners in GTD Pro. They weren't the swiftist car out there, which they admitted. But they executed and had the reliability, which are more important factors in a 24 hour race.

Then there's Nick Tandy. He completed the unofficial grand slam of 24 hour races as overall winner. Before this victory, he's taken wins at Le Mans, Spa, and Nurburgring.

And let's not forget Sebastian Bourdais. With his win in LMP2, it is now the third different class victory for the Frenchman at Daytona.

Finally, IMSA itself. This series just keeps getting better and better. And next race at Sebring we see the debut of yet another GTP manufacturer -- Aston Martin. With its screaming V12 engines!

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