To begin with, the whole rules in 2005 were carefully planned to stop Ferrari's 5 year dominance. The
lasting a whole race distance tyres was probably Michelin's idea and the Bridgestones sucked at it. Then comes the US GP where there's banking or whatever the problem was, and Michelin says "hey one of our tyres might blow up cos we didn't quite do our homework".
So the solution was to cut the fastest part of the circuit with a chicane or something, giving the Michelin guys an unfair advantage. Obviously Ferrari and the only other 2 teams with Bridgestones wanted none of this, cos why would they be harmed cos someone else hadn't done their jobs?
If the Michelin teams really feared for their drivers safety and wanted to race anyway just for the show without earning any points,
why didn't they race anyway and just instruct their pilots not to take the banking part of the circuit flat out? They would finish obviously behind the first 6 places and earn no points. Since the first 8 places would get points, maybe run cars which would be disqualified for technical reasons at the end of the GP, to discourage racing.
The Michelin teams were also given the option by Charlie Whiting to pit constantly for new tyres. It was allowed under the rules if driver safety was at stake. Michelin said their tyres could last 10 laps so, they could have raced, in theory with 5 or 6 pitstops. THAT would have been fair all around AND a show for the spectators.
Here's another thing they could have done, race for 9 laps and then mass retire into the pits. At least they would have put somewhat of a show.
There were a lot of options and fuck ups on both ends. The problem was created by Michelin, and the proposed solutions were not that great anyway. The very few plausible solutions were shot down because they wouldn't be fair. The fact that Mosley and Ecclestone not always have the fans in mind is well known and surprises nobody, I think.
Here's the formation lap and the start, to remind ourselves:
Also to remind ourselves how nice F1 cars used to look like :'(