I don't think a Marussia has an 140 mill budget even for 2013, with a rather cheap (by comparison) Cossworth engine. Considering the higher price of the engines next year, I strongly doubt that even an 140 mill guaranteed budget would give them the luxury of avoiding pay drivers. Money is never enough; when a team will have the minimal budget for driving one season at the back of the pack they will just push the budget's limit even more, to achieve better technology results and get higher in the ranks - so they would still appeal to pay drivers. to The concept of paying your seat is pretty much as old as F1, so we're stuck to it.
Like SpaMaster said, "merit" in F1 can take many aspects. Supposing Williams would have folded without PDVSA's large amount of money? In this case, Maldonado can be considered as more than meritorious, because he actively helped secure the team's immediate future, more than a lot of other team's personnel - and he even scored some impressive results with the team last year. Same thing goes for the Lotus today. If Maldo's money would keep the team from going bankrupt and turning belly up, does not he "deserve" the seat more than a driver who would ask for a salary and would bring no money instead?
And besides, pay drivers nowadays are not that shabby. We should look at the 70-80's pay drivers - some of them 10 years older than the field, getting the gears wrong, crashing into the leaders or vice-versa...now, that was a worrying status. But today? is the difference between Hulkenberg and Maldonado/Perez that big? one might say that yes, a difference does exist, but only at the fine-tune level, when discussing about WDC material versus non-WDC material. But really, pay drivers are not disasters on wheels anymore, and can score decent results given the right machinery.
Edited by ATM, 24 November 2013 - 11:31.