UK's annual Goodwood Festival of Speed has decided to mark the 50th anniversary of Mike Hawthorn's Formula One championship win, by setting the theme for this year's festival "Hawthorn to Hamilton". The Formula One connection of this popular festival has always been prominent and this year is no different, with many anniversaries relating to F-1 being marked this year.

To mark 50 years since Hawthorn's win, Lewis Hamilton, who hopes to repeat Hawthorn's success, is all set to drive his McLaren Mercedes up Goodwood hill. Another highlight will be a record number of actual cars that participated in the 1908 French Grand Prix, reuniting to mark the 100th anniversary of the first Grand Prix. The cars include machinery from Itala, Mors, Benz as well as Mercedes.

Some other anniversaries include 50 years of Cosworth, the company behind the most successful Formula One engine in history. Stemming from their legendary DFV, which has taken nearly 155 victories, Cosworth will be honored by Goodwood by a selection of the most famous Cosworth-powered race cars.

Last but not the least, the legendary McLaren will celebrate 40 years of Grand Prix wins in 2008, with Goodwood displaying prominent McLaren race cars, including those driven by Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

Many other Formula One teams are slated to participate in the event, some of them being Red Bull, with test driver Sebastian Buemi, Toyota with Kamui Kobayashi, Ferrari with Marc Gene, BMW Sauber with Marko Asmer and Christian Klien and Honda with Jenson Button. The Goodwood Festival will take place from July 11th till July 13th, 2008.