McLaren chief Zak Brown brought up an incident from three years ago when quizzed on Max Verstappen's aggressive style of driving ahead of this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Dutchman has been widely criticised for overstepping the mark when battling with other drivers.
He was involved in two major flashpoints with Lando Norris at the Mexican Grand Prix, twice running his McLaren rival off the road while attempting to overtake.
It led to criticism from the likes of Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert, but Verstappen responded by making accusations of 'British bias' and saying he would pay 'no attention to those individuals'.
Brown believes a bad accident will happen at some point if Verstappen fails to tone down his combative approach.
He pointed to the collision with Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone three years ago, suggesting history could repeat itself unless changes are made.
On that occasion, Verstappen was taken to hospital after Hamilton refused to yield during a battle into the high-speed Copse corner.
"Max is an incredible racing driver who pushes the rules to the limit, but you have to show him where the limits are," said Brown.
"If that isn't done, you'll end up with scenes like the one between Lewis and Max in 2021, when Lewis said to himself: 'Enough is enough'. I don't think we want to go back to that."
It remains to be seen if Verstappen will ever decide to change his style of driving, with F1 icon Mario Andretti suggesting that his aggression is what makes him such a formidable force.
"If you are not aggressive, you are not going to be world champion to begin with, but sometimes you can overdo things," Andretti told RacingNews365.
"We are all human. He knows that, so it is not like he would continue to do things that maybe he shouldn't, but he is aware of a couple of places, like Austin where he probably could have been a little bit not as right on, but that is good.
"To me, that is what racing is all about and I like to see that type of energy going into it from a driver. If you are aggressive and do really stupid things over and over, that is one thing, but this is not the case at all.
"He is very calculated and sometimes if the car is not really doing the things he wanted at the time, you can become frustrated, which is the way it should be, and maybe you overdo things, but it's not enough to fault anyone.
"I like to see that in a driver. If I own the team and he is driving for me, I would say: 'Atta Boy'."
