The 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season starts this weekend with the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. The qualifying took place on Thursday in heavy rain; here's what happened in the session.

Three LMP2s on top in Prototype

The lead class of the WeatherTech Championship decided the overall pole position, even though the conditions didn't allow them to set the quickest times of the qualifying session. Despite being only ninth quickest overall, Mikhail Aleshin claimed the pole position for SMP Racing with a lap time of 2:05.793. Sharing the pole-sitting No. 37 BR01-Nissan LMP2 car with Aleshin will be Kirill Ladygin, Maurizio Mediani, and Nicolas Minassian.

Pipo Derani qualified the No. 2 Ligier JS P2-Honda of Tequila Patrón Extreme Speed Motorsports into the front row alongside SMP Racing, losing 0.511 seconds to the polesitter Aleshin.

Last year's polesitter Oswaldo Negri qualified the No. 60 Ligier JS P2-Honda of Michael Shank Racing in third place, 1.639 seconds behind Aleshin.

The quickest of the Daytona Prototypes in their farewell Rolex 24 was the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP. Ricky Taylor qualified the No. 10 in fourth place, 2.173 seconds from pole.

Chip Ganassi Racing is the defending winner at the Rolex 24. Although the team's focus is now in Ford's GT program, they returned to Daytona with two Ford EcoBoost Riley DPs aiming to defend the victory. Alexander Wurz qualified the team's No. 01 car in fifth place and Scott Dixon qualified the last year's winning No. 02 car in seventh place.

Pole and third place for BAR1 in Prototype Challenge

Johnny Mowlem qualified the No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports entry on Prototype Challenge class pole with a time of 2:05.708. Alongside Mowlem, the No. 20 BAR1 entry will be driven by Tomy Drissi, Marc Drumwright, Brendan Gaughan, and Ricardo Vera in the race.

The rain wasn't as heavy during the PC class qualifying as it was later during the Prototype class qualifying. That enabled the PC cars set quicker laps than the Prototype cars; however the Prototype cars will start the race ahead of the PC cars.

Second-quickest in the PC class was Stephen Simpson in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports car, losing 1.605 seconds to Mowlem. Just 0.072 seconds behind Simpson was Ryan Eversley in the No. 26 BAR1 Motorsports car.

GT Le Mans Porsches quickest overall

Like at last year's season-ending Petit Le Mans, the Michelin-shod GT Le Mans cars were the quickest in heavy rain; the seven quickest cars in the overall results were from the GTLM class. Despite that, the GTLM polesitter won't start the race on overall pole but on pole of the separate GT start behind the prototype classes.

The Petit Le Mans winner Nick Tandy qualified the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR on GT Le Mans pole with a time of 2:01.408. The car will be co-driven by the defending GTLM drivers' champion Patrick Pilet and Porsche's newest factory driver Kévin Estre.

Porsche North America's GTLM front-row lockout was completed by Frédéric Makowiecki in the No. 912 car, 0.956 seconds behind the sister car. The No. 912 Porsche will be co-driven by Earl Bamber and Michael Christensen.

Third-quickest of the GTLM drivers was John Edwards in the No. 100 BMW Team RLL M6. The Rolex 24 is the debut for the new M6 GT car of BMW, in both GTLM and GTD classes.

Ferrari also has a new GT car for this season, the 488 GTE. The No. 68 Scuderia Corsa 488 GTE was the best of the Ferraris; Alessandro Pier Guidi qualified it in fourth place, 1.901 seconds from the GTLM polesitter. Another Ferrari, the No. 72 SMP Racing entry, got into trouble on the wet track; Gianmaria Bruni in the wheel of the car spun at Turn 1 and crashed into the tire barriers. The session had to be stopped to get the Ferrari recovered from the barriers.

Still, the most hyped new car is the Ford GT, marking Ford's return to GT racing. Despite competitive pace in the practice sessions, the two Ford Chip Ganassi Racing entries didn't succeed in the qualifying. Joey Hand in the No. 66 Ford spun on his last flying lap; his best lap before that was 5.350 seconds slower than the GTLM polesitter Tandy's, enough only for ninth place in the GTLM standings. Even slower was Ryan Briscoe in the No. 67 sister Ford; 7.032 seconds from lead in 10th place, only ahead of the SMP Racing Ferrari that failed to set a time.

The fifth GTLM manufacturer, Chevrolet, returns this year again with the Corvette C7.R. The Corvettes couldn't match the pace of the quickest Porsches, BMWs, or Ferraris; the best Corvette Racing driver, Oliver Gavin, qualified the No. 4 entry in seventh place, 2.566 seconds from lead.

Park Place Motorsports on GT Daytona pole

Norbert Siedler was the quickest of the GT Daytona drivers and qualified the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche on class pole with a time of 2:05.798. That was just 0.005 seconds slower than the Prototype class pole lap, though only because of better conditions during the GTD qualifying. The No. 73 Porsche will be co-driven by Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey, and Matthew McMurry in the race.

Two cars made it within a second from the polesitter in the rainy GTD qualifying. Marc Basseng qualified the No. 28 Konrad Motorsport Lamborghini in second place, 0.559 seconds from the GTD polesitter. In third place, 0.758 seconds from the GTD polesitter was the No. 22 Alex Job Racing Porsche, driven by Leh Keen.

The green flag for the Rolex 24 At Daytona will be waved at 2:40 pm ET on Saturday.