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McLaren‘s 2023 season is going from bad to worse. The Woking-based team had set their expectations low even before the season began. However, given the quality they have in their ranks, in terms of both driver and otherwise, the state they find themselves in is unfathomable for their fans. Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and McLaren CEO Zak Brown found themselves out of luck as the curtains fell on the Q1 session of the Miami GP Qualifying.

This is the very first time this season that both the McLarens have been knocked out in Q1. Naturally, the mood within the camp must be somber. However, the fans of the team are out for blood. And they’ve got only one man’s name in their minds. As soon as the fate of Norris and Piastri was sealed, McLaren fans jumped onto the internet and fired venom toward Brown.

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The upgrades in Baku last week came as a spit of hope for the team. However, in Miami, the pace of the MCL60 burst the bubbles of the team and their fans. The fans are now vehemently demanding that Brown be held accountable for the utter humiliation the team is facing this season.

Fans blame Zak Brown as McLaren slips further back into the abyss

The storied British team has had a history of unparalleled success in this sport. Naturally, seeing their team languish in the lower half of the pecking order despite their recent rise to the upper echelons of the midfield in the past couple of seasons has really irked the fans.

Norris even tried to subdue the whole fiasco by saying, “The car is not very much different. We’ve improved little tiny things here and there. The new floor, it’s an update but it’s not…it’s not meant to transform the car. It’s just a different direction we’ve gone and we’ve said that all year,” to the media after the session.

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“It’s just about being patient still. We are not expecting to be quick all of a sudden or easily competing for Q3s.” But even Norris’ maturity in the face of defeat couldn’t save Brown from the wrath of the fans.

In the aftermath of this disastrous Qualifying bid, one fan even commented, “Just get rid of Zak Brown. Problem solved.”

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After the promising steps forward in Baku, the team fell back this time around at Miami. And it seems as though nothing is going to save the team from this performance stalemate this season. As it turns out, the fans are tired of all the talk and the lack of results.

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Written by

Anirban Aly Mandal

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Anirban Aly Mandal is a senior F1 writer at EssentiallySports, with over 500 articles published on the platform. Anirban's love for F1 started when he discovered a copy of F1 2014 while playing on his computer, and he has since then dived deep into the world of motorsports. Anirban's expertise goes beyond just writing - he has also written several academic papers focused on the domain of motorsports.
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Edited by

Varunkumaar Chelladurai