Italian media have turned on Lewis Hamilton after the Briton was disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix. Hamilton ended the race in sixth position but was later disqualified after his car was found to have skid blocks worn below the 9mm thickness permitted in the regulations.

Hamilton had enjoyed a fruitful start to his weekend in China after winning the Sprint race on Saturday. But his two-stop pit strategy failed to pay off on Sunday as he finished adrift of the podium places. And he then had all his points stripped away. Hamilton’s team-mate Charles Leclerc was also disqualified due to an issue with his car as Ferrari were forced to deal with a double disqualification for the first time in their 75-year history.

Italian outlet Gazzetta dello Sport took aim at the Ferrari men with the headline ‘Red alert already: Ferrari, no more mistakes allowed’.

The outlet claimed the drivers ‘went from stars to dust’ and branded the double disqualification ‘one of the ugliest pages in the history of the Prancing Horse’.

They then labelled Hamilton’s sprint race victory as ‘another illusion to add to the enormous betrayed expectations of the winter’.

Meanwhile, Corriere dello Sport described the events as ‘a disaster’ and insisted it had been ‘a black day in China’.

And elsewhere, Corriere della Sera called the Ferrari disqualifications ‘an embarrassment’ and ‘a performance to be ashamed of’.

The result means Ferrari have dropped to fifth in the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings, behind leaders McLaren and adrift of Mercedes, Red Bull and Williams.

Hamilton, meanwhile, is ninth in the Drivers’ Championship standings, with Leclerc directly below him in 10th.

After the race on Sunday, Hamilton explained: “Balance-wise from the Sprint race, we made these changes and the car was terrible after that. So I really struggled from then on. I think it's good learnings and hopefully won't do that again as I continue to learn this car.”

He then told Sky Sports F1: “Ultimately, basically, we had a pretty decent car in the Sprint and then we made some changes because we were trying to move forwards and improve the car and we made it quite a bit worse, basically, going into qualifying.

“Then it was even worse in the race. So unfortunate but very, very hard to keep up with the guys ahead. But lots learnt.

“The pit stop is too long here, it’s a lot of seconds to catch up, and they were still going fast at the end. Max [Verstappen] was doing something similar to me and I had much fresher tyres, so it wasn’t great.”