At best he’s one of the two main antagonists, which I guess you could argue. McQueen does try to win the race so he dosent have to do the advertising stuff, but at the same time, he really wants to beat storm. McQueen offers that deal with sterling cause he wants to keep racing and ultimately beat storm. Storm is the reason McQueen sped up and crashed in the first place. The film is about McQueen getting old and less able to race against younger racers, the best of which, the one who won every match up until the finale, was storm.
