When Formula 1 met Cars – Celebrating 20 years of the motorsport movie

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Disney and Pixar's Cars, Lightning McQueen made a special appearance over the 2026 Italian Grand Prix in an all-new look. After a blockbuster Monza race, let's revisit all the times Formula 1 has crossed over with the fictional town of Radiator Springs.

From Liam Lawson describing Piston Cup champion Lightning McQueen as his racing hero to World Champions recording voiceovers for key characters, and of course the obsession with Scuderia Ferrari, there is a lot that connects F1 and the popular Disney Pixar franchise.

Lightning McQueen takes over the F1 paddock

To mark the 20th anniversary of Disney and Pixar's Cars, Lightning McQueen rolled into the Formula 1 paddock at Monza sporting a special one-off track official livery.

Released in 2006, Cars introduced fans to ambitious rookie racer Lightning McQueen, whose journey from trophy-chasing hotshot to beloved champion made him a global icon.

The film spawned two sequels and inspired a generation of motorsport fans, including several of today's Formula 1 drivers. Among them are championship leader Kimi Antonelli, Isack Hadjar and self-confessed McQueen superfan Lawson, who has often described the Piston Cup legend as his childhood hero.

A familiar voice

Although you’ll be familiar with the sound of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Richard Petty – voicing Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson and The King respectively – several members of racing royalty also feature across the 2006 film.

In the first movie, two former World Champions have their own motorised counterparts. The first is Mario Andretti who competed in both F1 and the IndyCar National Championship, taking title honours in both.

He appears as himself in car form ahead of the 200-lap winner-takes-all tiebreaker race at the end of the movie, and is represented by a 1967 Ford Fairlane. The other legend who has his own presence is seven-time F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, who appears as a 2005 Ferrari F430 at the end of the movie at Luigi’s Casa Della Tires.

Disney-Pixar also reached out to motorsport’s biggest stars for international dubbing. For Mario Andretti’s character, Fernando Alonso is used for Spanish speakers, and in the German version Mika Hakkinen replaces Andretti’s character altogether.

In the Finnish translation, two-time F1 champ Hakkinen also voices The King, with three-time World Champion Niki Lauda completing a voiceover for the same role in the German version. Giancarlo Fisichella also lends his voice to Boost for the Italian version of the film.

For Cars 2, released in 2011, more of the F1 grid got involved in lending their voices to some special characters. Alonso returned, but this time as his own animated car counterpart who attends the World Grand Prix and hangs out with Lightning McQueen in the Spanish version. Sebastian Vettel voiced race car Sebastian Schnell in the German version of the film; in other regions, the character was called Max Schnell and voiced by actors.

Lewis Hamilton also appears in Cars 2, as a character who carries the same name. He too races in the World Grand Prix, and Hamilton was apparently the only voice actor who was directly involved in the design of his persona.

Jacques Villeneuve also made a cameo as a commentator called David Hobbscap in the French-Canadian and French dubs, with Juan Pablo Montoya narrating the race car Jeff Gorvette in the Latin-American versions of the film.

Finally, in Cars 3, Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso all reprise their voices, with each playing the voice assistant of racing driver Cruz Ramirez in their respective regions.

Love for Lightning McQueen

Plenty of drivers have admitted to growing up on the Cars trilogy, with one big fan being Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson. He’s frequently taking photos next to the anthropomorphic stock car, from Disneyland to his recent trip to the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

During an interview in which he spoke about his love for the movie, Lawson was asked by F1 what his own Cars character would be like.

Lawson said in the 2024 interview. “It would have to look cool; it would have to be a cool-looking car; it couldn’t be a boring looking car. Obviously he’d have to be fast, and he’d have to race. He’d have to be like Lightning [McQueen] and he’d have to be in the Piston Cup – he’d have to win the Piston Cup! Number 30 as well.”

Discussing where his love for the movie originated, he told the media: “It was a movie that was very important to me, especially when I was young obviously. As a kid, it was a movie I watched every other day – genuinely – when I was three. Just at the age I was watching racing, and starting go-karts in the next couple of years. It was just a very big movie for me as a kid. I still watch it a lot.”