The Supreme Court has just agreed to hear another case that hinges on standards of scientific evidence (this one involves tyre safety).
At the 2005 US Grand Prix, 14 of the 20 drivers withdrew immediately before the race over tyre safety concerns.
Honda's Dani Pedrosa, 28, finished second in the third tyre safety testing session, which was held off the coast of the Australian state of Victoria.
The drivers have been concerned about tyre safety for some weeks, following a series of failures at the earlier races in Malaysia, Bahrain and Spain, and following Silverstone governing body the FIA has stepped in to ensure changes are made.
The 21-year-old will miss the three-day Phillip Island tyre safety testing, which starts on Monday, but is expected to recover in time for the opening MotoGP race of the season, in Qatar on 23 March.
Piquet, the leader, was immediately called in to change his tyres for safety reasons, and Prost was left in front.
The most important performance requirements of a tyre are safety and comfort of mobility, along with reduced environmental impact.
The race was resumed on lap 13 and Button, who had changed to intermediate tyres before the safety car period, was given a drive-through penalty for speeding behind the safety car, emerging in 15th place.
Most researchers appear to agree that studded tyres provide some safety benefit, although the size of this effect is frequently assessed as limited [4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12].
The Williams team then pitted Piquet to change tyres as a safety precaution, while Prost had already pitted earlier due to a puncture and did not need to change his tyres again.
