Row, row, row your boat, gently down the… err… St. Lawrence River? Canada’s Notre Dame Island is home to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but it was once a rowing and canoeing venue for Montreal’s 1976 Summer Olympics. Almost half the track – from the hairpin, past the pit straight and down to Turn Two – runs alongside the huge rectangular Olympic basin. F1 teams have taken to the water to compete in raft races. We took victory in 2017 with the help of Carlos’ race engineer Tom Stallard, who just so happens to be an Olympic medallist in the men’s eight.

While some choose to bring a pool to the party for the Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo is already home to a shiny blue hole in the ground full of liquid – an Olympic-sized one in fact – filled to the brim with seawater heated to an inviting 27°C. The pool in question enjoys fame like no other given its proximity to the action and part of the track owes its name to it. To avoid a dip in the Rainier III Nautical Stadium, the Swimming Pool complex sees drivers take a fast left-right followed by a slower right-left chicane.

Within the walls of the 688-hectare Parco di Monza can be found ‘La Pista Magica’, but did you know that it neighbours a golf course? And not just any golf course. It’s hosted the Italian Open nine times, and even our very own Carlos Sainz – who went from grid to green to follow in the footsteps of compatriots Sergio Garcia and José María Olazábal ahead of this year’s Italian Grand Prix. The flashes of bright papaya the Spaniard brought to the fairway would have made Rickie Fowler proud, his putting less so.

Sometimes, neighbouring a fully-fledged 18-hole golf course, buggies and all, just isn’t enough. Along with a picturesque golf course and temporary grand prix circuit, Albert Park boasts the Lakeside Stadium which doubles up as a running track and football (or what the Aussies call ‘soccer’) pitch. It’s also where South Melbourne FC calls home, and it’s all just metres away from the fast right-hander that is Turn Five.

‘Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd…’ While the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez resides within the Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City which was used during the 1968 Summer Olympics, it’s the baseball stadium inside Turn 14 that makes this circuit stand out from the crowd. The Peraltada was once a fearsome, high-speed 180-degree right-hander that caught out many, including Ayrton Senna, but now it threads through the stadium grounds, creating F1’s first-ever in-field stadium complex.

Turn back the clock over half a decade, let everything go black and white, and go to a time when Aintree was home to more than just the world’s most famous horse race – the Grand National. Built in 1954, the three-mile Aintree Grand Prix Circuit was located within the racecourse. Both shared grandstands. Both were a celebration of horsepower. And in 1962, Bruce had to quite literally hotfoot it to the podium after suffering a burnt foot from the boiling radiator in his Cooper-Climax.

Taking inspiration from the Olympic rings, let’s bring things full circle and look to the future. Although Long Beach may have struggled to claim a spot on this list at the time of John Watson’s awesome comeback win from 22nd on the grid in 1983 (the lowest-ever starting position for a race winner), Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, with Long Beach providing the stage for BMX racing, water polo, triathlon, open water swimming, handball and sailing. The question is, will anyone put in a performance to rival Watson’s heroics?

And while we’ve got our crystal ball out, let’s look even further ahead, like our friends at McLaren Applied Technologies did with their Future Grand Prix concept – a vision of grand prix racing in 2050. We’re talking cars travelling at speeds of 500 km/h right on people’s doorsteps and tracks that span far greater distances. Take Indonesia for example, it’s already vying to host the Olympics. A circuit that carved through Jakarta’s Olympic park before roaring into South Sumatra, across the iconic Ampera Bridge in Palembang, would be a tantalising prospect.