Despite this success, Irvine failed to finish five of the next eight races. He suffered from a neck strain at a test session at Silverstone and took time resting during the summer break. During this period, Rahal attempted to sell Irvine to the Jordan team with an additional $10 million to Irvine's salary. Irvine rejected the contract as he wanted to help Jaguar become more competitive. The contract, originally mooted by Rahal as a joke, led to his sacking and he was replaced by Austrian World Champion Niki Lauda. At the Belgian Grand Prix, Irvine was involved in a collision with Burti who was trying to overtake him. Burti crashed at over 240 km/h and absolved any blame placed upon Irvine. Irvine managed to clinch his final points of the season with fifth in the United States and ended the season by retiring from the Japanese Grand Prix from a failure of his car's power generators on the fuel rig. Irvine finished the season 12th in the Drivers' Championship having scored six points.
