Häkkinen started off the season by finishing fourth in Brazil, and later retired in Argentina due to a collision which punctured his left rear tyre that followed a spin. He took a further points finish with a 5th place at San Marino, before suffering from consecutive retirements in the next three races. For the French Grand Prix, McLaren introduced a revised version of their car, the &lt;a href="McLaren%20MP4/10B"&gt;McLaren MP4/10B&lt;/a&gt;. This did not revive Häkkinen's fortunes as he did not finish in the points scoring positions, and later suffered consecutive retirements in the next four races, but got second place at the Italian Grand Prix. He was forced to miss the Pacific Grand Prix due to an operation for appendicitis and was replaced by Jan Magnussen. He returned for the Japanese Grand Prix, with a second-place finish.