A hooligan driver could lose his £50,000-plus Ferrari under new laws usually used to put the skids under teeny terrors racing about on mini-motorbikes.

The motorist was caught racing his top-of-the-range, 180mph silver sports car around Oxford's ring road over Easter, and was warned by the city's top policeman, Supt Jim Trotman, that if he was caught again police would confiscate it.

Supt Trotman hit the errant driver with a Section 59 order, a relatively new power aimed at motorists who drive around in an anti-social manner, and which is often used against hoody-clad teenagers riding mini-motos and causing a nuisance in residential areas.

The Ferrari, worth between £50,000 and £90,000 on the secondhand market, is the most valuable motor now under threat of being seized by Oxford police if it is spotted being recklessly driven over the next 12 months.

It will cost the owner £110 plus a daily impound fee to get it back if confiscated.

Last night Supt Trotman condemned the driver, who lives in Oxfordshire but has not been identified publicly by police, for racing along the city's streets and vowed officers would not hesitate to seize the Italian V8 sports car.

He said: "I do not need people behaving like that on the bypass.

"I was out on one of my front line patrols with a colleague when we went to assist another colleague who had stopped a car between the Heyford Hill and Kennington roundabouts at about 2.20am on Easter Monday.

"It was pretty quiet at that time of time of night but from perhaps Tesco we could hear the noise of engines as they came down the Eastern Bypass.

"There was a Subaru and a Ferrari and as they came down it was very apparent they were having a race. From the noise and manner they came around the roundabout it was fast.

"They came towards us and we were able to stop them and draw them into the verge.

"I gave the driver of the Ferrari a section 59 order and he did not really give any excuses. He was fairly contrite. He may have been driving a car worth more than some people's houses but we will not tolerate it given what has happened on the bypass, albeit in different circumstances.

"That bypass is dangerous enough without idiots like that."

Supt Trotman said he could not charge the driver with dangerous driving or speeding because he did not have a speed gun to clock him. The Subaru driver was given a warning by his patrol partner, he added.

Section 59 orders are now being used more regularly by Oxford police. Last month the Oxford Mail revealed there were 19 motorists under Section 59s, which had been credited with stopping irresponsible driving around Rose Hill.