A rare one-million-dollar Ferrari sports car belonging to a Swedish game industry mogul slammed into a pole during a high-speed street race on Tuesday, reducing it to scrap metal, US police said.

Police in the plush Los Angeles district of Malibu said the 2003 Ferrari Enzo, only 399 of which were ever made, was owned by Stefan Eriksson, 44, a controversial former executive of the failed handheld gaming company Gizmondo.

The driver lost control of the Ferrari at around dawn when it careened up an embankment, probably became airborne and then slammed into a pole, slicing the vehicle in half, police said.

Eriksson, who was slightly injured in the crash, told police he was a passenger in the vehicle and that the driver was a German man called Dietrich who had fled the scene, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Sergeant Philip Brooks told AFP.

"Whoever was driving the Ferrari and a Mercedes came out to Malibu for a little race," Sheriff's Department Sergeant Philip Brooks said. "The other car racing was a (500,000-dollar) SLR Mercedes," he said.