Nico Hulkenberg receives 'some people have it' praise after 'Days of Thunder' near-miss

Audi boss Allan McNish believes "some people have the instinct" to avoid scary near-misses like Nico Hulkenberg's "Days of Thunder" avoidance of team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in the Dutch Grand Prix.

On the opening lap at Zandvoort, Bortoleto lost control of the Audi rounding the banked final corner in the damp conditions, akin to Max Verstappen seconds earlier, but unlike the Red Bull driver, he avoided hitting the concrete wall, and instead created a smoke screen as he completed a full 360-degree rotation. 

Hulkenberg was close behind the sister R26, and as Bortoleto came across the track, the German was blinded by the smoke, and faced a critical choice: whether to go left or right to avoid the stricken Brazilian. Hulkenberg ultimately chose to go left, and narrowly avoided T-boning Bortoleto.

Post-race, Audi boss McNish described the incident as something out of "Days of Thunder", the 1990 film where Tom Cruise becomes a NASCAR driver, and then heaped praise on Hulkenberg's reflexes to avoid a serious accident. 

"I watch their two onboards and am live every second with them, which is why I'm turning grey very quickly at times," McNish joked to media, including RacingNews365. 

"There are two factors. One, when something's happening ahead of you, there is a mental process, but there's also an instinct, and it's an instinctive knowing where to go and what to do.

"And some people have got it, some people don't, and when the car starts to sort of spin, it goes in this particular direction, and it's a trajectory, and then after that, there's an element of instinctive judgment: how far do you go in which direction? 

"Certainly, with a car on a banking, that's a different thing, though, because they tend to go up the way as opposed to down the way. Which is why I was very impressed with what Gabriel was able to do to keep it in the middle of the circuit, basically, and not for it to spoon up into the wall. 

"But without doubt, whether it was instinct or whether it was skill and focus or anything else, I don't know. But it was a bloody good save."