The Men’s Zwift Grand Prix “Squad Skirmish” happens tomorrow (Friday) at 6pm UTC.
This is the first time we’re seeing the “Squad Skirmish” format, which Zwift describes as “a highly strategic race where teams have to allocate their riders amongst a selection of different races in order to qualify for the final races and maximize their overall points score.”
This is round 3 of the Zwift Grand Prix, and the women will race their Squad Skirmish next Friday at the same time.
Race Details
Squad Skirmish consists of two rounds: the Qualifiers and the Finals. Each round contains 3 mini-races, with each race playing to the strengths of a different type of rider.
Teams are allowed to field up to 2 riders for each race, and must allocate their 5 riders across the 3 races, which means each team will be stuck with just a single rider in one of the three races. Allocating your riders across the three races will prove to be a big strategic challenge that is only magnified by teams not knowing which riders other teams have selected!
In the Qualifier round, each race will be raced multiple times.
All 12 teams will race the Qualifier round, but only the top 5 teams will advance to the Final round.
Here are the individual event details…
Qualifiers
Race 1: Watopia Hilly Reverse – Short Sprint, Repeated 4x
- Scratch Race, Drafting Disabled
- Distance: 0.3km
- Points available at finish line each round for 1st-6th place, 6 points down to 1 point
- Powerups: none
Race 2: Watopia Tempus Fugit – Medium Sprint, Repeated 2x
- Scratch Race
- Distance: 2.2km
- Points available at finish line each round for 1st-12th place, 12 points down to 1 point
- Powerups: none
Race 3: Watopia Hilly – Hill Climb, Repeated 2x
- Scratch Race
- Distance: 1.9km
- Points available at finish line each round for 1st-12th place, 12 points down to 1 point
- Powerups: none
Finals
The top 5 teams based on total team points from races 1-3 will advance to the finals. These top 5 teams will have their points reset heading into the finals, which means the finals are where the top 5 positions on the day will be decided.
The bottom 7 teams, who didn’t advance, will be awarded positions 6-12 for the overall day based on their points totals.
Race 4: Watopia Hilly Reverse – Long Sprint
- Scratch Race
- Distance: 9.4km (1 Lap)
- Points available at finish line for 1st-10th place, 10 points down to 1 point
- Powerups: Aero, Invisibility, Burrito, Draft
Race 5: Watopia Volcano Circuit – Medium Sprint
- Scratch Race
- Distance: 2.7km
- Points available at finish line for 1st-10th place, 10 points down to 1 point
- Powerups: Invisibility, Burrito
Race 6: Watopia Quatch Quest – Hill Climb
- Scratch Race
- Distance: 5.1km
- Points available at finish line for 1st-10th place, 10 points down to 1 point
- Powerups: none
Note: total race points will accrue across the 6 races and series points will be awarded according to each team’s final points tally.
Watch Live
Each Friday’s races will be livestreamed with commentary on Zwift’s YouTube and Facebook channels. Watch tomorrow’s men’s event below, and the women will race the same event next Friday (also below):
Questions or Comments?
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I’m enjoying the Zwift Grand Prix a lot. But i do wonder if the athletes enjoy racing them ‘:D
The Zwift Grand Prix has very cool race formats on offer … and this Squad Skirmish was the very best so far : fun to watch, many exciting race-finishes and a much better weighted points structure because now you need more depth in your team … on the flip side, in a ZRL-race, only one dominant rider can push the whole “team” on the podium of the day … I hope that WTRL will change the point structure in the future … more balanced for the effort of the whole team depending finish-positions