The driver of a French-registered car who told a cyclist he he had allegedly been in collision with: “Good luck finding me on foreign plates” before driving off without giving his details has been identified as a Premier League footballer by users of the social networking site, Twitter.

The incident took place in Hale, Greater Manchester at around 17:45 on Thursday, and left cyclist Rob Lockhart slightly concussed and with cuts to his face. His bike was said to have been “smashed.”

Two of Rob’s fellow riders took to social media channels, contacting road.cc on Facebook in an attempt to track down the motorist involved. One, Mike Jacklin, posted a picture of the vehicle on road.cc’s Facebook page to ask for help in finding the motorised while another posted that picture on Twitter along with a second photo showing the motorist.

It was on the latter site that the driver of the vehicle – a matt black Audi Q7 with the registration number AY-248-KT, also bearing the Department code 95 (Val d’Oise to the north west of Paris in the Ile-de-France region) was widely identified, including by people living or working nearby who recognised both the vehicle and its owner.

The driver, potentially identified by multiple social media users, cannot be named on road.cc for legal reasons. We'll update as we have more information.

Note: Details of this story have been amended following information supplied by Rob Lockhart