Jackson Storm defeats Lightning McQueen in the opening race of Pixar’s Cars 3.
Storm represents a new generation of racers built around advanced simulation, training, and engineering. His sleek black design and confident attitude contrast with McQueen’s older racing style. In the opening sequence, Storm’s superior performance forces McQueen to confront the possibility that his career is approaching a turning point.
The defeat leads McQueen to seek increasingly ambitious ways to remain competitive. He eventually works with Cruz Ramirez, whose training methods initially focus on modern technology and data. Their partnership changes when McQueen realizes that Cruz has the ability to race herself.
Jackson Storm is not the same character as Chick Hicks, McQueen’s principal rival in the first Cars film, or Francesco Bernoulli, the Italian champion from Cars 2. Storm belongs specifically to the next generation introduced in Cars 3, which was released in 2017.