Hamilton “certain” of “very strong” engine in 2014

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In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton expects Mercedes to be in good shape for the new technical regulations next year.

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Mercedes will be a force to be reckoned with in 2014 – Hamilton (ESPN)

“I am certain we will have a very strong engine next year.”

Russen sagen Sauber ab (Bild, German)

Bild claims the board of Russia’s National Institute of Aviation Technologies has not approved the deal with Sauber that was announced last month.

Adrian Sutil Q&A: I want to get back to scoring points (F1)

“We have to see how much the others will improve over the next weeks, but yes, my hope is that the next circuits will make things easier again for us. It’s a nice and cozy feeling to be a permanent point-scorer so we want to get back there!”

F1 Builder With $10 Billion Debt to Sell Assets: Corporate India (Bloomberg)

“The builder of India’s only Formula One racing track seeks to reduce debt by 150 billion rupees ($2.5 billion) [£1.58bn] by selling its cement plants in southern and western India, some of its power generation units and property in a year, Suren Jain, managing director at Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd. said in an interview. The flagship Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. has $10 billion [£6.47bn] of total debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”

Force India set for facilities upgrade (Autosport)

“If wind tunnel time is going to be restricted, there is no point in us installing a new state-of-the-art wind tunnel and adding capacity that will not be utilised, in which case we might share a wind tunnel with somebody.”

Jody Sheckter [sic] from Formula One to farming (CCTV)

“One to two drivers were killed every year. I had done what I wanted to do. I think the real magic had gone form me. I saw a lot of people getting killed and I saw a lot of people who didn’t care about the drivers safety that much. And so I didn’t have anything else to do but I felt I needed to get out. I didn’t have anything left to do.”

How much do Formula 1 cars cost? (MSN)

“Total of basic parts = £1.150m per car.”

Enzo Ferrari: his example lives on (Ferrari)

Luca di Montezemolo: “Twenty five years on, he would be happy to see what Ferrari has become today, a unique industrial and racing institution, which represents Italian excellence and continues to enchant the millions and millions of fans of the marque, all over the world."

Continental notes, September 1973 (MotorSport)

“Every year or 18 months, for as long as I can remember there has been a bad motor racing accident. Someone has left the stable door open and a horse has got out. There is a great cry, a mad rush to slam the door, lots of shouting and yelling which dies away until the next time the door is left open and another horse gets out. I do not know what the complete answer to it all is, I wish I did, but I am very worried that one day we are going to be told forcibly, by law-and-order, that there is no solution and that the stables, the doors and all the horses have got to be done away with.”

Bernie Ecclestone, Fabiana Flosi, Christian Horner in Dubrovnik (DubrovnikTVnet via YouTube)

Planet Murray (Gordon Murray Design)

“The T.25 and T.27 concept has now been sold to a customer and with a following wind a lot more drivers should be able to enjoy the centre drive experience in 2016!”

Montoya won’t be back at Ganassi in 2014 (Associated Press)

[Juan Pablo] Montoya has been with Ganassi since 2006 when he abruptly left Formula One ?óÔé¼ÔÇØ where he had seven wins and 30 podiums ?óÔé¼ÔÇØ for NASCAR. It’s his second stint with the car owner ?óÔé¼ÔÇØ the two teamed together to win the 1999 CART championship and 2000 Indianapolis 500 before Montoya moved to F1.”

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Comment of the day

Will fuel be the dominant subject next year in the way tyres have been this year?

The fuel-saving debate could be quite similar to the tyre degradation debate we’ve been having for the past couple of year. Defending fuel saving, one could say that fuel saving has always been part of Formula 1. I think however, that I would side with the This-Level-of-Fuel-Saving-is-Too-Much camp.

In IndyCar, there is quite a lot of fuel saving, too, but at least there you have the option of making an extra pit stop and putting in some really fast laps. In next year’s Formula One, it could be that even before the race has started, a driver is resigned to lifting-and-coasting for 300-plus kilometres, and knowing he will go backwards in the race compared to his more fuel-efficient rivals.

The latter scenario could arise in case one engine (say, the Mercedes) has very high power output, enabling its drivers to qualify on the front row, but poor efficiency compared to another engine (the Renault, for example), in which case a lot of frustrating afternoons are in store again for fans of the former engine, except at Monaco.
@AdrianMorse

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Happy birthday to F1George, Dan_The_Mclaren_Fan and Kirill!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Alain Prost increased his lead in the 1983 championship with victory in the Austrian Grand Prix. His closest title rival Nelson Piquet> finished third behind Rene Arnoux.

Patrick Tambay led the opening laps before being badly held up by the lapped Ligier of Jean-Pierre Jarier, allowing Arnoux to pass:

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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59 comments on “Hamilton “certain” of “very strong” engine in 2014”

  1. On the new engine’s performance, I know it is a completely wild stab in the dark but judging from the respective manufacturer’s strengths in the V8 era I think Mercedes will have the most powerful engine, Renault the best in the low rev ranges (which will be especially key on traction-dependant tracks next year with the much greater torque) and Ferrari just a general good all-rounder. I’m placing my bets on Honda being the ones to watch though – I think the extra year’s development will prove a handy advantage and provided they sort out their aerodynamic problems I would place my adventurous bet on them being world championship contenders (if not world champions) in 2015.

    Perez for WDC 2015 anyone? ;)

    1. Maybe if McLaren turns into Brawn… and Button into Barrichello.

    2. And cue the calls of the first ‘pay driver WDC’! But seriously, I think Perez will be strong if there is a conservation aspect to a new formula, Button is also quite a thinking driver too though. I wonder if the likes of Raikkonen, Alonso will do well as well with their thinking attitudes. I feel Vettel will maximise using the 33 seconds of ERS boost in a flat out lap. Do we think that drivers who are smooth on the throttle will do well with the coming torque increase? Here, I’m thinking again Button and Perez.

    3. I agree with the Mercedes being the best bet for efficiency and power, however the comment about low end renault power and traction I disagree with. Next years cars will have enormous amounts of torque due to the turbos but also with the anti-lag systems that will be developed. More torque and/or low end power does not equal better traction. Torque is detrimental to traction in many cases especially with worn pirelli tyres. Traction is majorly influenced by differential settings, suspension setups, alignment setups (eg. camber at the rear) as well as the level of toe angle used at the rear wheels. Ballast also plays a role. More rear ballast results in better corner exit traction, however understeer and a risk of front wheel locking under brakes can come into play.

      I predict Mercedes and Ferrari to have the power over Honda and Renault.

      1. @jakehardyf1 I said the Renault will probably be better as it can apply the torque better, not because I expect it to have more low-end torque? The current one is classed as the “most driveable” hence why I’d predict the same.

        Remember, I’m just filling time during the summer break by making wild speculations @jcost ;)

        1. I misread that. You are completely correct. The RB9 does it beautifully.

        2. iirc the ‘driveability’ of the renault is due to the type of throttle they use which also happens to be the most fuel efficient with a small sacrifice on power – I would imagine all engine suppliers will take this approach with the new engines.

          *edit not sure where I got the efficiency from but http://www.f1technical.net/articles/18247 describes it, wonder if the ‘fuel flow’ regulations go hand and hand with this…

    4. I wouldn’t risk any bet, before 2013 many people thought Perez would be WDC in 2013…

    5. @vettel1

      Don’t think you can extrapolate that at all, by definition all of next years engines will have lots of (to much?) low rev torque.

      I certainly wouldn’t want to predict that dice, Renault, Mercedes, Honda, Ferrari, they all have decades worth of experience in developing engines.

      1. @tvm

        I know it is a completely wild stab in the dark

        I wouldn’t be so ludicrous as to seriously predict a form guide based on pure speculation and past form.

    6. my wild guess ….. (to fill the summer break)
      is that Renault will be the most efficient on the grid and Mercedes the most powerful. Ferrari however will struggle overall. I think Renault and Mercedes have a good baseline since their R&D dpts are toying around with energy recovery systems for a while now. While Ferrari may know a thing or 2 about turbos, the ERS part and reliability could be problematic and Fiat doesn’t seem to be too much into it either.

    7. No mention here of aerodynamic efficiency? I think this will be the deciding factor, not engine power.

      In my opinion having the strongest engine is not going to mean much if you have a draggy car and as a result need to be more conservative on the throttle.

      Red Bulls philosophy has been to maximize downforce at the expense of drag, but that has worked with the current regulations. I wouldn’t put it past them to completely change their design in this respect. Merc on the other hand have had a very slippery car, with a very strong engine in recent years.

      FI have also been very fast in a straight line (Merc power). Maybe they could be a dark horse in next years championship?

      1. @dm0407 that’s because I was talking purely about engines!

        Aerodynamics will obviously still be important so one can only assume Red Bull will still be strong but besides that I think you might be absolutely correct. I’d throw McLaren into the mix as well – this year’s car is horrid but they can produce brilliantly efficient cars in terms of aerodynamics (MP4-27, MP4-4 to name just two).

  2. Next season F1 will be turned upside by new rules on engines – 1.6-litre turbo-charged V6 engines will replace the naturally aspirated, 1.8-litre V8s.

    The rule change is an expensive business as one team boss told MSN he expects engine costs to increase to as much as £8.6m per car.

    It’s 2.4l V8’s but I’ll let you off this time MSN as I know how potentially bad it could be having seen the CNN article yesterday!

    On the cost though, I would assume £8.6m would constitute the power unit which also encapsulates all the energy recovery systems. They only have to have 5 units per season as appose to 8 now (provided they don’t break down) also and since I presume that figure is a “worst case scenario” I wouldn’t expect the figure for the 2014 engines to be too much higher than it is now.

    I think that proclamation has just come from the inflammatory media.

    1. Max, 1 obvious error makes the entire article suspect imo, I’m pretty sure F1 engines are not bought but leased, so maybe it is GBP8.6million per car per year, or maybe it is per engine but I doubt it, the article is vague. GBP100K. per front wing, that soon adds up with a couple of updates for every race and natural attrition.

      1. @hohum I agree – I do believe Sauber pay 18€m for their engines per year (8 V8 units) so £8.6m for one engine seems to be an unrealistic figure on face value.

        1. As far as I understand the 4,3 million GBP/car/year is just for the engine package. Add to that the gearbox, and the drivetrain and likely a bit for services etc, as a complete package and you get to the 18 mEUR (app. 15,5 million GBP) they are currently paying for both cars.
          The amount of 8,6 million GBP (or app. 20 million EUR) would be about 20% more.

  3. Interesting news about Montoya. Cant say I am surprised, his NASCAR results have been relatively poor. Its sad to see though, a driver that could have been one of the very best in F1, just wasted.

    Where will he go next one wonders? No pun intended, but he may have got a bit too pudgy to fit into an open wheel racer…so that potentially rules out Indycar. Perhaps a drive WEC or FIA GT1? It also depends if he is interested. It would be great to see him back into circuit racing wherever that may be. He never quite got accustomed to Ovals.

    1. Cant say I am surprised, his NASCAR results have been relatively poor.

      He’s not been helped by the fact that the Ganassi Nascar squad in general have struggled & gone through a couple re-shuffles of personnel since JPM went there.

      Chip puts all his best people & most of his funding in the Indycar program because thats the series Chip cares about most. Its also why he’s had so much more success in the Indycar’s compared to other programs he’s run.
      The Grand-Am team has been a success, But with the US Sportscar world been split between Grand-Am & ALMS they never always faced the stiffest of competition & for most of the last 10yrs had by far the largest budget & best facilities of any team in that series (Until Penske switched from ALMS when the Porsche LMP2 program ended).

      Going back to JPM, I wasn’t really that surprised that he decided to leave F1 back in 2006 because you could see a frustration building & it was obvious that he wasn’t enjoying the McLaren environment.
      At Williams he had a fair bit of freedom but at McLaren was put on a tight leash & like all McLaren drivers was told to keep himself smart for the corporate sponsors & he hated it & you could see that he hated it.

      In a way it mirrored Hamilton, You could see Lewis getting frustrated with the McLaren sponsor driven corporate image the past 2yrs & ultimately he left for Mercedes where he seems a lot happier with the extra freedom he’s gained.

      Montoya could have been a world champion in by opinion, The raw talent was there, Only thing that held him back was perhaps oddly that he was a pure racer & always wanted to push flat out & be on the limit, If he saw the chance of an overtake he went for it, Sometimes it worked out leading to some awesome overtakes & other times it led to some silly contact.
      I remember him saying in the Nascar announcement that one of the things he’d become frustrated with in F1 was that people complain there’s not much overtaking yet when you actually try to overtake everyone complains that your too dangerous. For example most fans loved the move he pulled on Schumacher at Brazil in 2001 yet he got some criticism from most the other drivers in the Imola drivers briefing for leaving the move too late, been ‘out of control’ due to the brakes been locked-up & nearly colliding with Michael.
      He never did understand that attitude & frankly neither did I.

      1. There was a very good article by Peter Windsor in F1 Racing the month after Montoya left F1 discussing his departure. He reckoned that Ron Dennis didnt quite agree with his management team. That coupled with the fact that Mclaren generally keep their drivers on a tight leash didnt help.

        Mclaren this uncanny ability to not extract the best out their start drivers, and more often than not, they loose the plot. Just look at the last 14 years..they’ve had the quickest car for a number of years, but their championship haul doesnt quite reflect that. Ron is a divisive figure, and I maintain that he was part of the problem, probably still is.

        JPM could have been world champion, but he needed to be managed well. He is an emotional driver, but Im sure a team principle that understood what made him tick could have got the best out of him. Williams did a pretty good job, but they never had enough to make a serious push for the title in 03.

        I hope JPM find another race seat somewhere.

    2. I’d like to see Jaun join up with porshe for a WEC drive, and then win Le Mans, so we can finally have someone finish the Triple Crown of Motorsport again. Last person to do that was Graham Hill, 41 years ago.

  4. Renault and Mercedes seem to be really confident of their 2014 engines. Ferrari on the other hand are just staying mum for now. Ferrari’s lack of experience with Turbos is going to hurt them more than their poor aero team and wind tunnel issues are hurting them this year. I would be shocked if Ferrari won a WDC or WCC in the 1.6l v6 era with their own engines.

    If I was Fernando, I would jump ship from Ferrari to Lotus next year.

    1. Forget the Turbo as a problem for Ferrari, remember the F40, as I have said before, any decent engine builder will be on the money as far as the engine goes, the power recovery package however will be an area where huge (in F1 terms) performance differences could appear, but Ferrari have as good a chance as anyone in that area of being the best or worst initially.

      1. @todfod
        Simply because you have not heard much news about the new Ferrari engine on F1Fanatic doesn’t mean that there’s no news out there. ;)

        I would recommend this site for constant up-to-date Ferrari news;
        http://www.thescuderia.net/

        I was thinking about new engines for next season.
        Everybody is talking about Mercedes engine and how it will be the best.
        There have been very little talk about Ferrari engine! Are we behind the schedule, in what stage of developmet it is and is it possible that after all the disappointments we have seen in last few years 2014 will be the worst one?

        No, we’re not behind schedule and I have full confidence that Ferrari’s V6 turbo will be better than Merc’s engine. Our next year’s engine has been ready for quite a while now and at the moment they’re testing it in the factory. So I really wouldn’t worry about it.

    2. Ferrari’s lack of experience with Turbos is going to hurt them more than their poor aero team and wind tunnel issues are hurting them this year

      When Ferrari started to build Turbo Engines at the beginning of the 80’s they were the best in the Business , their engines were the most powerful and they had a reputation of putting the best engine in the worst chassis
      In 1981 Gilles Villeneuve obtained 2 memorable wins , the one at Monaco which is the first win of a turbo car in Monaco & the one in Spain & in both occasions you could see that Villeneuve had the edge on the other drivers on the straight but he had to work very Hard on the corners
      In 1982,1983 they won the WCC & as for their road car division the 288 GTO & the F40 were just masterpieces
      Many would argue that this was a long time ago while Ferrari has stopped the development of their turbo engines the others didn’t do the same, well Ferrari is not only Ferrari they belong to Fiat Group which also includes some legendary car manufactures like Maserati, Alpha Romeo, Jeep, Chrysler, dodge, Fiat itself which has been producing good turbo engines in the last years, Lancia (the most successful rally manufacturer in the history )
      Don’t forget that Paolo Martinelli the former Ferrari head of engine department from 1994 to 2006 is still having an executive role within Fiat

    3. “Ferrari’s lack of experience with Turbos is going to hurt them more…” I don’t get it! Honda has less experience with turbos than Ferrari but more success, Porsche as well. Ferrari never got it right from 1981 to 1988. Experince is not their problem, something else is…

  5. it is shame that montoya left formula 1 in 2006, even before finishing the entire season, he was the most exhilarating driver on the grid in his rookie season with williams, he should have at least won one dwc before leaving.. just another talent wasted…

    1. @eliy I personally think that JPM had achieved all he could in F1 by the time he left the series. He had some very good equipment in his peak, but then was in sub-par equipment towards the end of his time.

      1. I hardly consider the McLaren of ’05 sub-par equipment. If anything, it was by far the fastest car on the grid, all be it very unreliable. Raikkonen just blew Montoya away in both ’05 and ’06, wich tells me he was just over his peak or couldn’t reach his peak in McLaren (Ron Dennis)

  6. In 14th of August 1988, an old Italian died. His name? Enzo Ferrari.

    1. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
      14th August 2013, 11:07

      What is your point?

      1. Enzo Ferrari died on this day 25 years ago.

  7. I hope we won’t lose Sauber, it would be a shame if the deal would fall through at the 11th hour. It does surprise me, though, that they find themselves in such dire financial straits. They were sixth in the WCC last year, and they still have Telmex sponsoring from Gutierrez. Also, last year they apparently thought they could afford to hire Hulkenberg at a salary of probably a few million per year. Are Sauber terrible at budgeting (depending on which articles you read, they haven’t paid their drivers, their engine supplier, or Pirelli), or were they gambling on finding additional sponsorship on the back of expected good results?

    1. Probably they budgetted on sponsors who withdrew? I remember reading that the Chelsea deal would be extended.

    2. @adrianmorse – The reports are coming from Bild, who love nothing more than predicting disaster at every turn. Their “story” hinges on the idea that NIAT have not paid a ruble to the team when the deal was pitched as being a financial rescue mission. However, Sauber have already pointed out that NIAT has no financial obligations to the team, so if they have not paid, that is because it was never a part of the deal.

    3. And here is the article Mr. Grüber promised (in German) – Sauber denies they ever expected a financial input from NIAT, and that contrary to what is reported they already received the first money involved in the deal

    4. I guess they were counting on getting a deal done that fell through (much like Lotus with their rumoured Honeywell deal). Or who knows, they might have gambled on getting some money from Bernie for signing the concorde agreement but its not finalized.

  8. I’m not worried just yet about the economy of the engines and fuel-saving. I’m really excited about the level of sophistication in the energy recovery systems, but with the management of energy going into either crankshaft or spooling up the turbo, plus harvesting and DRS and KERS release, diff settings, brake balance, coded messages in a language not your mother tongue and so on… I imagine the drivers will be extremely busy to the point of drastic mistakes being made. We’ve all read the team radio transcriptions and the workload is already phenomenal. So for now, my only prediction for next year is more drivers shouting “leave me alone!”.

    1. I just want to see enough fuel in the cars for the drivers to race. Good luck to the commentators as they try to find a balance between all the techie stuff and making it an engaging watch and listen.

      Fuel-saving is even more boring to watch than tyre-saving, and I’ll turn it off if F1 becomes a parade controlled by the team-radio monkeys: “OK, Lewis, back off. Harvest 5. Target regen 7. Green parrot. Remember to drink.”

  9. I’ve just had a thought – if Hamilton is so certain, has there been another private test? :P

    1. @vettel1 This break in F1 hurts you, doesn’t it? :P

      1. @philereid it does – it’s the summer holidays also so I’ve got nothing to do! Conspiracy theory mode is definitely on @shreyasf1fan :P

    2. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
      14th August 2013, 11:11

      @vettel1 is in full summer-break conspiracy theorist mode ;)

      1. lol

    3. @vettel1 You can’t be serious?

      Hamilton told the media he thinks Mercedes will have a good engine next year. Well, I mean, that’s pretty obvious right, that he’d say that? He’s their employee. Their engine might be a heap of junk at this point but he’s always going to tell the press that everything is brilliant. It means absolutely nothing, it’s just an employee throwing out a PR line as you’d expect them to do. He’ll probably also say he thinks that next year’s car’s going to be brilliant too.

      1. @vettel1 You can’t be serious?

        Of course he’s serious. It’s also true that Bernie Ecclestone is really Fred Savage in costume.

        Surely the ‘:P’ should have clued you in to the fact he was joking.

        1. @raceprouk

          It’s also true that Bernie Ecclestone is really Fred Savage in costume.

          I could believe that :P

      2. This is deja vu. Remember the ridicule Lewis got when he said he was moving to Merc and he was preety sure they would have a strong car this season; though he wasn’t sure excatly how strong it would be? Now Merc are 2nd in the CC, and may even challenge for the WDC. I’d say he has an idea of wht he is talking about.

    4. @vettel1
      He is so certain because there are only 2 other competitors even if Mercedes will get it wrong they will still having the 3rd best Formula 1 turbo engine in the world

    5. @vettel1, is there a ban on testing a car that is completely different to the current regulations? and even if there was, surely Merc. could run a test using a sports prototype that just coincidently weighed as much as an F1 car and had the same CD.
      But I think Lewis having used MB engines for his entire F1 career has good reason to claim he is confident in MB engines. But hey, it is boring around here so good luck in stirring up outrage and controversy.

      1. @hohum actually that is a very interesting point: the regulation is that you can’t test with a car that “substantially conforms to the current technical regulations” – since a 2014 car wouldn’t, it may actually be possible! I’m guessing the teams would probably have a gentleman’s agreement if it weren’t forbidden in the regulations.

  10. Looking at that video from 30 years ago at the Austria Ring… great. Love the uphill bit directly after the start-finish straight. And to think we’re returning to that circuit next year! :)

    1. Soooooooo excited :-)

    2. Wasn’t it completely demolished and rebuilt? Perhaps some of those hills have been leveled a bit… But I truly don’t know the extent with which it was rebuilt.

      1. Good to see that old track again but it won’t be quite the same. They now turn sharp right halfway up the first hill. The same happens at the end of the lap, but the hump before the last turn is still recognisable.

        I believe it’ll be the same layout as the A1-Ring used in the 90s – videos like this one from 2000 give some idea of it (those V10s sound like a trip to the dentist these days!)

        I love the way those 1983 cars slide! I wish we could have tyres like that again.

  11. I’m definitely bored from the summer break so I’ll play the speculation game:

    Merc’s will dominate with more power in the new engines and Lewis will get 15 polls next year…but only 2 wins because of fuel issues. Merc’s will spend the race coasting while Ferrari will do better with fuel economy and can race harder. RB will be scratching their heads because the downforce he so loves will cause the RB’s to have poor fuel economy and they’ll actually start the year off on the wrong foot for once.

    Result: Alonso gets his 3rd WDC.

    Hey, I’m a Hamilton fan…just calling it like I see it :-)

    1. @daved, but you have overlooked the fact that Newey is a genius at creating attached flow to make the car sliperyer so they can use more wing for downforce. He could easily switch philosophy to design a car with equivalent downforce to the opposition but less drag for economy.

      1. You’re probably right about Newey and the aero. His genius is clearly off the charts on that front compared to all his contemporaries. But I wonder if he is as smart now that the power train will dominate the races? It’s a different skill set: How much KERS to use on the drive shaft, and when? Or do you use the energy more effectively to spin up the turbo faster?
        Can you imagine the simulations they’ll have to go through on EACH TRACK to try and map all this out best?

        Talk about making your head spin!

  12. Since the engeneering and engineers of the 80’s and the ones from 20 years later are very different, I wouldn’t think I could make a prediction of engine performances (let alone characteristics like “low down torque”) with more than 5% acurcacy :p

    But I predict a Ferrari and Mercedes more closer to redbull… Mercedes has been preparing a good technical line up, and Ferrari must be fed up of bad cars, and making strong investment in 2014

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