Could Lightning McQueen beat Max Verstappen around a lap?

I've seen this question come up time and time again.. Can Lightning McQueen, the hero of Disney Pixar's Cars, beat Max Verstappen, the most successful F1 driver of the last few years?

[MrVsGarage]

What do you think of the new editing style in this one??

[Formula]

Formula 1: Max won
Piston Cup: Mach 1 (point 3)

[ArianneBlaire]

> sees three road courses
> time for a tiny tier list ranking them for F1

[ewoudvanaalst]

Now THESE are the type of questions I want answers to. Not questions like "who is the best driver on the grid" nonono, THIS

[lumi_bloop]

can't believe you forgot to mention Winford Bradford Rutherford, who beat 7-time Piston Cup Champion Lightning McQueen in equal machinery

[thetreyceratops]

I love how not only did Lightning McQueen break the sound barrier during the Tokyo race, he didn’t even win the race

[JellesMarbleRuns]

im 4 minutes into this video and this is the best video you have ever uploaded

[Wing_cap]

I think the FIA might need to give Lightning a Ferrari 2019 style wink wink nudge nudge engine correction

[aubreyamoaurose]

I'm all in for the Cars lore, now the question is how fast popemobile would actually be, and could it beat the pope in a race?

[divide]

With some quick “back-of-the-napkin” calculations, Lightning McQueen would be experiencing approximately 215 lateral Gs during the section shown at 9:50. This is far beyond what a human driver could endure and vastly exceeds the structural limits of a NASCAR Cup Car. In 2011, these cars were built with 4130 Chromoly steel, with body panels made of DOM tubing and aluminum, none of which could withstand such extreme forces - they would simply tear apart.

The "Goodyear Eagle Racing Slicks" used in 2011 were capable of handling up to 4 lateral Gs, meaning they too would be utterly destroyed at ~215 Gs. Additionally, if McQueen’s tires followed the same physics, they would not generate enough grip to keep him on the road, implying the use of some other technology - possibly strong magnets or high-powered fans - to maintain traction.

For McQueen to stay grounded, he would need to generate approximately 3.25 MN of downforce, which translates to around 6.5 kPa of pressure, assuming a 5m² underbody designed for suction. This would require moving roughly 15, 000 m³/s of air, demanding about 11.6 GW of fan power. Further rough estimations suggest that the tips of these hypothetical fan blades would reach speeds of Mach 31.7 - assuming, of course, they don’t immediately disintegrate…

[RedelaxYT]

I have another theory. The time displayed is for the current lap only and Francesco Bernoulli is a cover name for Luca Badoer in 2009 Ferrari so they are actually slow as hell

[Ryzard]

4:20 - he absolutely is being held back.
Keep in mind, in cars 1, he recovered from being spun and overtook another racer at rull racing speed while DRIVING BACKWARDS.
Given that gearboxes and other mechanical components from real cars do exist in the cars universe (citation - planes 2) this implies that his reverse gears are fast enough to hit this level of speed with his aero working against them - meaning that in forward gears, due to regulation, LIGHTNING IS HOLDING BACK DURING HIS RACES.

[wiktorii]

It always amazes me how deep Cars lore is.

[blakelowe]

"A little bit more for pitstops" well, given Guido's skill at pitstops...

[Ryzard]

12:00 - note that average speed, INCLUDING the dirt section, would imply that his actual top speed was likely well over 1, 000mph, and that he and Francesco both accellerate to their top speed in seconds, sometimes less than a second, and are cruising without braking or releasing the gas through street snaking turns.
Max, and any human, would just be dead from g-forces in a car that could do that.

This also implies that, at his actual top speed would likely allow him to race modern jet fighters such as the F-22 at it's optimal height without load, or the F-15 Eagle on the deck. Not like top gear where they race to the end of an air strip - at full speed.

Actually, if we really assume he slowed for the turns and dirt section, its entirely likely he could race an SR-71.

[dakkonfury]

That 168 average around Tokyo came in alarmingly close to what I figured was their average speed around the rainbow loop. 188m=2r, 2*pi*r=188pi, 188pi=590.619, the circumference of the loop. It takes the cars about 2 seconds to go around 1/4 of the loop so 590.619/4=147.655, 147.655/2=73.828 meters per second, which converts to about 165mph. Bonkers!

[arunnambirajan]

13:28 - Steve Jobs and Apple invested a lot into Pixar during its early years, which is why you might find easter eggs acknowledging them throughout various movies. For instance WALL-E's startup sound is the same as a Mac computer. Never knew about Mac iCar though.

[poetaco]

The question we all needed answered!!!

[redben]

2:52 The Piston Cup wiki is almost completely fan speculated. To my knowledge the only confirmed Piston Cup winners are Doc Hudson, Strip Weathers/The King, Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks

[Djungelurban]

I'm surprised you didn't calculate the speed he kept during the scenes depicted. Like you know how long he is, so you can easily calculate his actual speed during those scenes...