Hey Zwifters!
Today we are sharing some big news in the world of racing and results: Zwift Racing Score.
Starting 3 July, all Zwift Monthly Racing events will be scored events. This means that Zwifters will see a post-event score based on their finishing position. This is your Zwift Racing Score. Zwift Racing Score will not initially impact how you sign up for or participate in races on Zwift (you will continue to use your normal A-D category). In the coming months, we will iterate in partnership with you to ensure the score provides the most value possible.
If you’re looking for the quick n’ dirty details, check out our FAQ on the support site at this link.
If you want to leave additional feedback about Zwift Racing Score, please do so at this survey link, which will be accessible after this post closes.
Our goal today is to:
- Introduce the concept of Zwift Racing Score as transparently as possible
- Collect feedback from you, the community, about how we can improve it over the coming months
With those goals in mind, we will provide information through these key points:
- How we chose our current implementation for Zwift Racing Score
- Where we are today with Zwift Racing Score and how we aim to improve it in the months to come
- What Zwift Racing Score is and is not in its early stages
- How Zwift Racing Score works today
- Where and how we will need feedback from you to improve Zwift Racing Score
As a result, you can expect this to be a bit of a bigger read than you might be used to on the forums. Let’s get into it!
How will Zwift Racing Score benefit Zwifters?
The high level goals of Zwift Racing Score are to:
- Help create a race environment that encourages all Zwifters to race by making it easy to get into the right races and rewarding to complete a race
- Make it easy for Zwifters to understand how they stack up against their fellow competitors
- Make racing rewarding rather than punitive (e.g. use a model that minimizes chances to lose points) and encourages racers of all levels to challenge themselves against harder fields
- Create a new and flexible competitive scoring foundation that can evolve with Zwift racing over time
How did we decide on our current approach to scoring?
There are many ranking models that exist today across platforms for games as well as different governing bodies for cycling. There are multiple ranking systems built for Zwift alone, such as ZwiftPower, WTRL, or ZwiftRacing.app.
Zwift Racing Score is, at present, derived from the ZwiftPower ranking method with some changes. The quick summary of ZwiftPower’s system is that it rewards Zwifters points based on how they finish, with more points being awarded for racing a more challenging race. The overall ranking is structured such that lower numbers indicate higher ranked riders on a scale from 600-0, where 0 is the best.
For more information on the ZwiftPower model, you can read about it in the FAQ section of the ranking page, found here.
We reached our decision to start with the ZwiftPower model based on:
- Extensive user surveying and feedback collection
- A system that will encourage more Zwifters to race, particularly Zwifters that have less race experience or have never raced
- Overall simplicity in understanding the system
- Extensive internal testing with real race results to both check our calculations and address most bugs and edge cases
What can I expect from Zwift Racing Score today and how will it evolve in the coming months?
We are building today with an eye to the future; just like the giant mech components in Makuri, you’ll be getting glimpses of what’s to come as we assemble bits, bobs, ends, and chunks to form our very own Watopian Voltron. Through the northern summer months, we are focused first on helping you all familiarize yourselves with Zwift Racing Score. We want to make it clear how it works so that we can make it the best it can be, in part through your feedback.
Today, Zwift Racing Score will appear simply as a number attached to your Zwift profile. For now, that number might mean little but in the future it will crystallize into a piece of a more comprehensive overhaul of the race experience.
Your Zwift Racing Score will be found on your profile in the following places, shown with example images:
- Your Zwifter profile on Zwift.com
- Your Zwifter profile on Zwift Companion
- In the game client on the home screen in the top right corner and in your profile settings menu
- On your ZwiftPower profile.
These are example images only.
Your Zwift Racing Score is visible only to you on Zwift web, Zwift Companion, or in Zwift game. For the time being, you will only be able to see other Zwifters’ Zwift Racing Scores on their ZwiftPower profile if you are both registered for ZwiftPower.
How is my Zwift Racing Score calculated today? How can I affect it and see it change?
The Zwift Racing Score uses a 0-1000 scale, where 1000 is the best. This is a deliberate choice for more intuitive understanding. While the scale for Zwift Racing Score is different, the base math is largely the same.
Zwift Racing Score consists of three main components:
- Race Quality: this is how competitive the field is relative to you, and is determined by the five highest scored finishers in the first ten places of the race. A higher quality race is most often one that has a larger field (20-25+) and/or has more riders in a higher category (A-D) than you
- Points per place: the number of points you are awarded based on your finishing position. This varies from race to race depending on field size.
- Rank points: the final component that uses the race quality, your position, and points per place to determine your final score for finishing that race
For the time being, you will only be able to see your current score. You will not be able to see your historical score changes per race. We are working on showing you more information on how your score changes after each race and which races count toward your score.
We have been running internal score calculations with race results for a number of weeks ahead of our soft launch today. Up until 29 June 2023, all race results on Zwift were used to calculate a score for all Zwifters within a rolling 90 day window. As a result, some of you will see that you have a Zwift Racing Score on your profile already. Remember: it will show if you’ve done any one race in the last 90 days.
From 30 June 2023 onward, only specific races will have their results scored, beginning with the July Zwift Monthly Racing events. While scored races are currently limited to those events, we will gradually make more races scored as time progresses. We will communicate which other races will be included in the score calculation.
Today, Zwift Racing Score will function as follows for all Zwifters:
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You are scored on the race results you see in-game in Zwift immediately following the race. Race results in places like ZwiftPower, WTRL, a custom site from your favorite community organizer, or results which otherwise do not show immediately following a race in the Zwift game client do not influence your score
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Your scores are represented by a single numerical value on a 0-1000 scale, with 1000 being the highest possible score.
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Zwift Racing Score is an average of your 5 best race results on a 90 day rolling basis (with only July Monthly Racing events and other to-be-determined events in the future counting toward score after 30 June 2023)
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Each race has a quality multiplier associated with it, which serves as an augmentation to score as quality goes up. The higher the mathematical quality, the bigger the possible score change you can see. In other words, you can race with higher scored racers for a better chance at a score improvement.
4a) For the soft launch, “higher quality” can be understood as a higher category race and/or races with more participants*
*We understand that Zwifters in specific time zones might have a harder time finding highly populated races during the initial months of Zwift Racing Score. This may result in scores reading differently than you might expect.
4b) You are not required to join higher category races, however, and your score’s accuracy does not change if you do so. Joining a higher category race is simply a means to challenge yourself and attempt to increase your score more drastically
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If you do not have any race results within the last 90 days, you will have a provisional score based on your 5 minute power best from the last 90 days in Zwift
5a) The provisional score is currently not visible by itself on your profile
5b) If you do not have any race results within the last 90 days, you will see “–” next to your Racing Score on your profile until you complete at least one race, at which time your provisional score combined with that race result will display a score on your Zwifter profile
5c) If you have no ride or activity data on Zwift in the last 90 days, we strongly encourage you to do at least one activity before signing up for a race to have a more accurate score calculation, though it is not required
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If you have completed 4 or fewer races within the last 90 days, the provisional score will be used as a placeholder value for all races yet to be finished until you complete your 5th race. This helps you maintain as accurate a score as possible until you have completed 5 races. For each race finished, the provisional score will be overwritten, causing your score to shift
6a) As you finish your first 5 races in 90 days, it is possible to see your score decrease because your provisional score is overwritten by the score of your most recent rac.
6b) If you set a new 5 min power best in any activity on Zwift before you have completed 5 races, the provisional score will be updated to reflect your recent performance. This may cause some shift in your score if you have less than 5 races in the last 90 days
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Once you have finished 5 races in 90 days, you are unlikely to see your score decrease for finishing poorly in a race
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Your Racing Score can change when your race results start to fall outside the 90 day window
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It is possible to receive a score lower than your current Racing Score or a score of 0 in a race. If you have not yet done 5 races in the last 90 days, that score will be used to calculate your overall Racing Score
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The most consistent and accurate scores are produced by racing as much as possible
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You are not penalized for not finishing a race (DNF), no matter how many races you have completed in the last 90 days
How do I know which category to sign up for using my Zwift Racing Score today?
The TL;DR is there is no major change to race sign ups based on a score for the time being. Read on to find out more.
The goal of the scored results is, in part, to move away from power values to help you be less limited by your physiological capability. An emphasis on race placement helps to achieve this.
For the next few months, you will still sign up for all races according to your Race Category/Pace Group (A-D category). This is true for races that are scored as well as for races that are unscored. Zwift Monthly Racing will show A-E categories just like any other race.
The reason for this is that we are still working on the UI that will help you make the distinction between your Race Category/Pace Group and your Zwift Racing Score when signing up for a race.
There is no direct correlation between Pace Group and Zwift Racing Score.
Zwift Racing Score is primarily calculated based on your race results. Pace Group is calculated based on your power, and you will see values will differ. The long term goal is that Racing Score and Pace Group will not correlate to one another. However, there will be higher correlation in the early stages because we are initially using Pace Group for scored races. Racers that finish fewer races in 90 days will see a stronger correlation than those who race more.
For example, you may have a Pace Group of C based on your power numbers in the last 90 days, but you could be placing well in races within that Pace Group, which would make your Zwift Racing Score a different value than your Pace Group.
How do I leave feedback about Zwift Racing Score?
One great and easy way to leave feedback is right here on this forum post!
To keep feedback on this post timely and pertinent, we will be locking this post 14 days from its original post date.
The creation of additional forum threads is also welcome, though we ask you look thoroughly at existing threads that are relevant to your topic before creating your own in order to keep the discussion productive.
We also encourage you to fill out this survey!
For more information, check out our FAQ on our support site at this link.
Ride On. 
