Chester joined
Simtek Research in
vehicle simulation, moving to their Formula One entry in 1994. In 2000, Chester joined
Benetton as
test engineer to
Alexander Wurz,
Giancarlo Fisichella, and
Mark Webber. He became performance engineer for Fisichella in 2001 and
Jarno Trulli from 2002 to 2004, overseeing the Italian's only F1 victory (
Monaco 2004). Chester took on the position of head of Renault's Vehicle Performance Group (VPG) in 2005, Chester oversaw the development of the
tuned mass damper system, which was a major innovation. In 2010 Chester was made head of performance systems. In 2012, Chester was appointed engineering director of Lotus, playing a major part in the race winning E20 and E21 F1 cars. A year later, he replaced
James Allison as the team's Technical Director, therefore being responsible for the design and development of every Formula One car to come out of
Enstone from May 2013 until January 2020. In January 2020 Chester was replaced by
Pat Fry at Renault. Chester joined the
Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team as
technical director in July 2020. In March 2023, Chester joined
Andretti Global as the technical director for its Formula 1 project. Since January 2025, Chester has been serving as the Chief Technical Officer of the Cadillac Formula 1 Team. ==Career timeline==