Horner backs 'unlucky' Klien

"Obviously it is too early to judge the job that Christian has done to date, but he is in his third year of F1, he knows this year is important but he is totally committed to the job," Horner told autosport.com.

"He drove well at the Nurburgring, and was unfortunate with the incident (the red flag in qualifying) and hopefully he will be hoping to repeat that performance here."

Horner further refuted rumours that Red Bull Racing are planning to promote third driver Robert Doornbos to a race seat at the Monaco Grand Prix

"Regarding the Robert Doornbos rumours, there is no substance to them at all. We are happy with the job he is doing as third driver, he is doing a good job for us in the work he is doing on the Friday and in his test role, but we have no immediate plans to change any drivers."

Horner believes that Klien's failure to finish in the points since the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix had more to do with bad luck and poor reliability than anything to do with his driving.

"Christian has had some bad luck and we have not had a tidy race weekend from start to finish without a session or race being interrupted by an incident or a mechanical issue," explained Horner.

"We are getting on top of that now and hopefully this weekend we will have a straightforward practice, race and qualifying scenario.

"The focus for us at the moment is very much on improving the car, which is happening. We were unlucky at the Nurburgring that incidents with the red flag in qualifying and at the start of the race, which hurt us quite badly, but we have got a positive upgrade coming for Silverstone.

"Everyone in the factory is working very hard, we have got a very strong team of people now and hopefully we still start to see the impact of that shortly."

Horner said that the team were in no rush to make a decision about their future driver line-up, with both Klien and David Coulthard's contracts running out at the end of this year.   

"Both of our drivers are focused on trying to remain with the team for next year, but we won't be making any decisions until later in the year."