In the following race held in Britain where McLaren brought a revised version of the car, their &lt;a href="McLaren%20MP4/11B"&gt;McLaren MP4/11B&lt;/a&gt;, Häkkinen reached his first podium finish of the season with third place. However, he retired from the next race held in Germany due to a gearbox failure. This marked a turning point in Häkkinen's season as he finished the next three races, including consecutive third-place finishes in Belgium and Italy. In September, it was announced that Häkkinen would remain at McLaren for 1997, having previously been linked to Williams and Benetton. He retired from the penultimate round in Portugal resulting a collision with teammate Coulthard, damaging Häkkinen's front wing and eventually led to his retirement on the 52nd lap of the race. He rounded off the season with a third-place finish in season finale held in Japan. Häkkinen finished the season fifth in the Drivers' Championship, scoring 31 points.