Born in Shepparton, Victoria, Lancaster started cycle racing at the age of 14 in 1993.

[4] His greatest successes as a road cyclist were winning the prologue of the Giro d'Italia, and thus wearing the race general classification leader's pink jersey.

Brett Lancaster is the first member of the Italian registered team, Ceramica Panaria–Navigare, to ever claim the pink jersey.

He won a gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens as a member of the team pursuit (with Graeme Brown, Bradley McGee, and Luke Roberts) in world record-breaking time of 3:58.233.

[6] Lancaster retired from cycling after the 2015 season, and moved to become a directeur sportif for Team Sky in 2016.