At long last, it’s go time.

I’m on the ground in Melbourne at the Australian Grand Prix, the first race for the Cadillac Formula 1® Team, and everywhere I go, it seems like everyone I talk to asks me the same question – the same one people at home have been asking.

“How does it feel?”

The only word that can accurately describe how I’m feeling is… humble.

And it’s more than a feeling. It’s a mindset. I mean “humble” in the best sense possible. To call this experience humbling is not diminishing, or demeaning, to my mind. In fact, it’s uplifting, because it reminds me, every minute, that I’m very thankful for so many people, both personally and professionally. I’m thankful for everyone who helped me get here today, back in Australia, and for everyone who helped our team get here for this race, and that’s a long list.

Personally, my thoughts drift back to being a child in Turn One at Indy, with my Dad, hearing the engines roar for the first time as they came into that turn. The sound sent a tingle down my spine that has never gone away. If he were still with us, Dad would be absolutely thrilled to see us enter F1 with Cadillac. I know he’s watching this unfold, and I’ll bet he just can’t believe it.

Professionally, my thoughts are consumed with two paths, the one that led me to Australia 18 years ago to lead our business here, and the one that led our team to Australia this week.

My family and I absolutely loved living here. Our children were young and had a blast, and we made friendships we’ll have for life. I learned a career’s worth about business and leadership in less than two years. GM was in crisis back in Detroit, and even though we were as far away as we could possibly be, we felt it.

If you had told me then that GM and I would be back here now, for this? Ridiculous, I would have said. And now that it’s happening? Humbling.

I’ve tried to find quiet times and places for these thoughts this week, to reflect on all of this and be thankful. And I truly am thankful for everyone at the Cadillac Formula 1® Team, our co-owners at TWG, and all our executives, engineers, designers, and team members in Michigan, North Carolina, Indiana, and the U.K. It’s easy to be humble when so many have helped us get to where we are.

It's also easy to be humble when you’re at the track for your first F1 race as a team. There’s a flurry of activity in the paddock and throughout the Albert Park Circuit complex, with people who have it all down to a science, zipping back and forth from one mission to the next, and you’re just trying to figure out where lunch is.

We’ll find out. Just like we’ll learn, continuously, from one day this week to the next, from one race this year to the next, and from one season to the next.

A big reason F1 accepted us is because they know we’re in it for the long haul. And we all have seen enough new teams come and go in this sport over the years to know the long haul is exactly what it takes. But I know we have the talent and the resources to do just that – to learn, invest, improve, and work as hard as we can to find success in the pinnacle of motorsports.

Every F1 team, at its beginning, starts just like the drivers on the grid – from a standstill.

I’ve said from the outset, this is going to be hard. We don’t know exactly where we stand because we’ve never run a race. We don’t know how our car stacks up here because we’ve never been on the Melbourne track.

But we’re going to take the data and the results and continuously improve – fast – and play the long game. There will be a final lap for us this Sunday, as in every race, but there is no finish line. This journey will be one of constant learning.

It’s authentic, and it’s historic for Cadillac, rolling into Melbourne with what will become the first American full-works team in F1, and the whole team and I are thrilled to be here. We’re approaching this exactly the way we should, with a touch of pragmatism, a ton of pride, and a whole lot of humble. Win or lose. I’ll get a tingle down my spine either way.