BooRadley

Drifting is not the fastest away around an asphalt corner, unless you are driving a motogp bike. Cars have gobs of traction, and the computer-proven fastest method of turning is using trail-braking to correct your course ( braking late into the turn ) and then nailing the throttle and coming out of the turn at as high as possible speed. Do a search on trailbraking for more info. You are on the THRESHOLD of drifting when you trailbrake correctly, but instead you are using all your tires ability to corner and accelerate at the same time. Traction control systems help the F1 cars do this in the most efficent way possible without sliding.

You cannot accelerate while drifting. It is physically impossible to accelerate in a forward direction(towards the end of the turn) while your drive wheels are spinning ( for true drifting )

If you are using a FWD to drift, you must be pulling brakes to drift, therefore slowing down ALOT. Otherwise, the front wheels would be spinning, leading to a near uncontrollable slide(steering and drive wheels spinning = no control ) . For AWD, yeah , you can accelerate, but I've never seen any video of a car gaining momentum while drifting. Maintaining momentum, yes, but not gaining. If you trailbrake properly, you will gain the most amount of momentum through the corner and have the highest possible exit speed with the least amount of time in the corner. Drifting gives a high exit speed, but the time in the corner is ridiculously long compared to properly slowing down.

Bikes actually benefit from sliding their rear tire... but be warned for any biker-noob-wannabes reading this : If you aren't a motogp or supermoto rider, just don't do it. Sliding the rear tire is dangerous at very least, and you can end up high sided ( with your bike smashing into you after you hit the ground ) or low sided ( sliding down the road after your bike ). You will be hurt if you incorrectly control a rear wheel slide, and to correctly control one takes more training than any book can tell you. If you want to slide your bike, do it off road where it is appropriate.

PS:

If drifting is "so slow", then why do rally cars do it?

Simple. They have NO TRACTION compared to race track asphault or concrete . They don't have the luxury of being able to trail brake and run the ragged edge between cornering and accelerating. Therefore, they take the fastest line for conditions by sliding.

Comparing WRC racing to road racing is like comparing supercross to motogp. Completely different surfaces, completely different riding(or driving) styles. What is fast in one is slow in the other.