15/08/2025

Garzo & Baldassarri secure second grid row for Austrian double-header

In hot summer temperatures, Dynavolt Intact GP riders Hector Garzo and Lorenzo Baldassarri secured fourth and fifth place on the grid for both sprint races of the third round of the season at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.

The conditions on the 4.35 km track were challenging for both man and machine. On Friday morning, Hector Garzo got off to a solid start in eleventh place on his Ducati V21L before improving strongly to fourth in practice. His 1:38.347 was just 0.077 seconds behind the leader. In Q2, the Spaniard stepped up again and secured fourth place on the grid for the two seven-lap sprint races on Saturday.

Lorenzo Baldassarri put in a similarly strong performance. The 28-year-old MotoE rookie started the day in seventh place and qualified directly for Q2 in fifth place in practice. Everything had to go to plan in the ten-minute Q2 session – and it did: with a time of 1:38.472, he narrowly missed out on fourth place and was only 0.554 seconds behind pole-setter Matteo Ferrari. Immediately after setting his best time, he crashed lying in P3 while attempting to set an even faster time. Fortunately, “Balda” remained uninjured and is confident for the two races, which will start at 12:10 p.m. (CEST) and 4:10 p.m. on Saturday.

Results

Free Practice
1. Mattia CASADEI/ ITA – 1'39.084
2. Nicholas SPINELLI/ ITA – 1'39.098 (+0.014)
3. Alessandro ZACCONE/ ITA – 1'39.216 (+0.132)
7. Lorenzo BALDASSARRI/ ITA – 1'39.527 (+0.443)
11. Hector GARZO/ SPA – 1'39.856 (+0.772)

Practice
1. Mattia CASADEI/ ITA – 1'38.270
2. Eric GRANADO/ BRA – 1'38.292 (+0.022)
3. Matteo FERRARI/ ITA – 1'38.329 (+0.059)
4. Hector GARZO/ SPA – 1'38.347 (+0.077)
5. Lorenzo BALDASSARRI/ ITA – 1'38.486 (+0.216)

Q2
1. Matteo FERRARI/ ITA – 1'37.918
2. Mattia CASADEI/ ITA – 1'37.949 (+0.031)
3. Eric GRANADO/ BRA – 1'38.014 (+0.096)
4. Hector GARZO/ SPA – 1'38.205 (+0.287)
5. Lorenzo BALDASSARRI/ ITA – 1'38.472 (+0.554)

Hector Garzo

P4 - 1'38.205 (+0.287)

"First of all, I'm glad to be back after several months of surgery and suffering with my arm. I think this is the best way to come back and also get to know the new front tyre. I never had the opportunity to fully test it before, as the race weekend at Le Mans ended far too early and we had a different front at Assen. To be honest, I'm having major problems with a few things, even though I'm trying to do my best in every corner. Still, I'm happy because we're strong and showing good pace. So, we went into qualifying with the clear goal of starting from pole position tomorrow. But it was a strange session due to many crashes. When I was finally able to really push, my rear tyre was unfortunately already too worn off, and I couldn't set a really good lap time at that point. But that's how it is in MotoE, even though we did our best as always. Overall, I'm satisfied because we're making progress step by step and it's nice to suddenly see ourselves back at the front. Ultimately, it's not the position we want, but P4 is still good. We expect a good race in which we will fight for the best position. Many thanks to the team and all the sponsors for their support."

Lorenzo Baldassarri

P5 - 1'38.472 (+0.554)

"In the end, despite the crash, it was a good day because we have a good speed. After a month and a half, it wasn't easy to come back so strong, and I didn't have too many laps with the MotoE bike beforehand either. Qualifying consisted of only one lap for me, but I managed to do a fast lap at the start, and in the lap after that I was three tenths faster in the second sector with red helmets. But turn six is a critical point here, where many riders have crashed because the left side of the tyre is not yet at the right temperature at this point. So, it's easy to crash there. I was able to safe a crash on the first lap, but on the next lap, that wasn't possible. I'm sorry for the team, even though I'm glad that I'm okay and that we're fast for tomorrow. As for the bike, I think it's fine, so that my crew won't have too much work to do tonight to repair it. So, we'll keep going like this because the whole team is working very well. I'm also growing and learning every time I go out on the track in this category, which is still new to me. Let's keep up this fighting spirit and see what we can achieve tomorrow."

Pictures MotoE - Friday Austrian GP 2025

Back