Racing Score doesn’t make sense after a long break – am I missing something?

Racing
1

I’m a bit confused by the Zwift Racing Score system and I’m hoping someone can explain it.

I came back to Zwift after about 7 months off. Before the break my Racing Score was around 457. I did my first race back yesterday. I’m very out of shape right now — my FTP is probably around 200 W at best.

The race was restricted to 390–550, and I finished 45th out of 55 (basically last of everyone who finished). My power was obviously not great… yet my Racing Score went up by almost +100 after the race.

So now I’m basically guaranteed to be even more out of place in the next race !

I honestly don’t mind finishing last, but I don’t really understand the logic behind the scoring. It feels like I’m being massively overrated compared to my actual fitness right now.

Does anyone know why this happens?

Race stats:

Average power: 166 W

Normalized Power: 176 W

20 min: 2.4 W/kg

5 min: 3.1 W/kg

Weight: 71 kg

Any insight would be appreciated.

2

~220W at 71Kg for 5mins gives a seed score of ~237 according to ZWIFT ZRS v3 by VirtuSlo

I’ll have a quick look to see if I can fin d you and the race on zwiftpower…

You appear to have done 286W for 5mins at 65.5Kg on 3rd December 2025, which would give you a seed score of ~453.

All Zwift activities are considered for 5min seed score.

Right now, my guess is that you have done a stronger 5min effort while at 65.5Kg than that 286W on 3rd Dec, which isn’t showing in zwiftpower.

Oops, 3/12/25 format confusion, indeed that’s 12th March, way outside 90 day power!

2 Likes
3

Result showing as -38 movement to a new score of 558.

Possibly the decay reset bug. Sometimes when someone’s score has reduced due to decay, and they do one of the actions that trigger a pause to the decay, their score gets reset to the pre-decay value.

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I think this one is odd. Although OP thought his ZRS was around 457 when he stopped earlier in the year his last race score was 596.
If he had 15% of decay he would be down around 506 and eligible to enter the pen.
During the race he didn’t appear to put in any 5 min power to make an impact on his ZRS.
His new ZRS of 558 is very odd but at least the score change of -38 ties in with his last Zrs of 596.

Wonder if it is a decay related issue?

1 Like
5

Thanks for checking.

That race was on 12 March 2025, not 3 December, looks like a day/month format mix-up.

I understand that Zwift keeps my historical 5-minute power and uses it for seeding, that part makes sense. What surprised me wasn’t my initial score, but the fact that my Racing Score increased after this race, even though I finished near the back with low power.

That’s the part I was struggling to understand.

1 Like
6

Just to be sure I understand:
where do you see the –38 change and the 596 score?
Is that information coming from ZwiftPower somewhere?

If that’s the case, then it makes much more sense, it would mean my score is actually decaying back down with races.

Thanks for the explanations

7

The information can come from ZwiftPower if you use the ZRS extension.

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Normally I find it easier and quicker to find on Zwift Companion App race results, provided activity isn’t set to Private.

Yes your score was decaying and had probably decayed all the way down to 506 but for some reason it is now at 558. I think that now you have raced the decay will stop and you are stuck at 558. you are probably best to contact Zwift Support Contact Us - Official Zwift Support | Zwift and ask if they can explain why you are not at a ZRS below 510, considering you came last in a race pen that allowed you to enter below 510.

ZRS races are not the only races out there. If you feel you can not quickly gain enough fitness to race ZRS at 558 you do have the option to find the old CE system of pen allocation races. These races are based on your Category(Pace Group) which is currently D but these also wont stop you racing up in the C pen and might offer a more challenging race.

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