Lewis Hamilton’s debut campaign at Ferrari has not gone to plan and it was another disappointing result for the Brit at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur declared that Lewis Hamilton was at fault for his crash at the Dutch Grand Prix in what was a miserable weekend for Ferrari. It was 22 laps into Sunday’s race when the seven-time world champion – who began the race in P7 – went onto the painted run-off at turn three and lost control of his car.

After making contact with the wall on the corner exit, the collision destroyed the Brit’s front-right which caused the end of his race in what was his first retirement as a Ferrari driver. The 40-year-old was wholly apologetic on the radio afterwards and when asked by race engineer Riccardo Adami if he was okay, Hamilton responded: “Yeah. I’m so sorry, guys.”

Vasseur – who signed a new contract with the Italian team last month – had his say on Hamilton’s crash, admitting that while he enjoyed an improved weekend, he misjudged his speed on lap 22. “Maybe he [Lewis] went too wide in that corner,” the Frenchman said after the race.

“He came in too fast, climbed too high, and lost the car, ending up in the barrier. Overall, I think he was doing a great job this weekend. But if you want to score points, you have to finish the race.” Charles Leclerc faced a similar end to his race after Kimi Antonelli made contact with his car, leaving the Monegasque driver forced to retire for the first time this season.

It was the toughest stretch of Hamilton’s short Ferrari career before the summer break where he was first knocked out in the first part of both the sprint shootout and Grand Prix qualifying in Belgium, before finishing a lowly 12th at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton discussed the newly-formed strategy he went into Zandvoort with as he told media including Express Sport: “I tried to have a slightly different approach to the weekend. Not going to go into details of that, but some tweaks, before I even got here, and then through the weekend, and it’s been a lot smoother.

“Yesterday the car was a bit unpredictable, and I think we made some changes, maybe the wind makes it a little bit difficult as well. But I think we were looking for progress, and I feel like I have had that this weekend. I’ve not been in Q3 for some time, so I am grateful for that.”

Despite admitting the changes made did improve his performance, Hamilton lamented the unpredictability that remains within the car. He added: “As I said, there’s some things I changed which enabled me to start on the right foot, better foot. My first lap yesterday [in FP1] was quickest at the time – then the next lap was a spin, but the car, as I said, is quite unpredictable.

“We worked well together with the engineers this weekend. It’s not been up and down on changes; it’s been quite stable. We just made small tweaks, really, really small tweaks. And therefore just been trying to gain more and more confidence in the car. I think that’s what’s happened the last couple of days.”

Ahead of the Italian Grand Prix next Sunday, Hamilton will serve a five-place grid penalty after he was adjudged to have failed to slow down under yellow flags during the Dutch Grand Prix.