Powersliding vs Drifting: What's The Difference?

It’s come to my attention that there are a LOT of people that don’t know the difference between a drift and a powerslide. Can you spot the difference? If not, don’t worry. Because in this video, I’m going to be teaching you the differences between the two.
As with a lot of terms in motorsport, the definitions can become wishy washy. With so many people from different cultures and speaking different languages all doing the exact same thing, it’s easy to understand how some people may become confused.
Take this technique for example
*show scandi flick*
What would you call it? Maybe you’d call it an inertia drift, or a kansei drift, a fishtail drift, a pendulum turn, maybe a finnish flick, or of course, a scandinavian flick. You get the point. All of these names for the same technique originated from different locations across the globe, but in essence, they all describe the same action – and can be used interchangably.
But, is this the case between drifting and powersliding? No.
Both words actually share the same definition. a deliberate, controlled skid by a vehicle turning through a corner at high speed. And in many coloquial conversations, they may in fact be used interchangably. However, I think pretty much everyone that is somewhat into motorsports, or has ever driven a car in a performance manner would agree that we aren’t able to use drifting and powerslide to describe the same action. So, let’s define precicely what drift and powerslide mean;
In essence, a drift is everything that happens prior to the apex. You can initiate a drift by any means possible. Be it a rip on the handbrake, giving the clutch a swift kick or doing a scandinavian flick. But, so long as it happens at the entry to a corner – or before the apex, it most definitely is a drift.
With a powerslide, we actually keep things tidy all the way through the corner entry to the apex. But, once we reach said apex, we abruptly put down the power. Which, in a car with a decent power to weight ratio, will make the back end step out. They key is literally in the name, it’s a POWER slide. Achieved by putting down power on the exit of the corner.
Now, the keen drifters of you will know we can actually initiate drifts by using the cars power. But, this is actually what we would call a power over. A power over is again, done at the entry to a corner – used to initiate a drift. A power over and a power slide are not the same.
Another point raised is to do with drivetrains. Some say that rear wheel drive is drifting, while all wheel drive is powersliding. Again, this is wrong. We can drift AWD and powerslide RWD. They’re not mutually exclusive. Whatsmore, some people seem to think that we powerslide front wheel drive cars. This is in fact impossible, because the rear wheels don’t deliver the power. If we put our foot down at the apex of a corner in a front wheel drive car, it won’t enter a slide. But, we can drift front wheel drive because we can rip the handbrake, or use weight transfer to get the back end sliding. Does that make sense?
So now we know the difference between drifting and powerslides.

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[acethemain]

it's just really satisfying to watch those shots of you drifting/ powersliding down the touge. Please make a montage of you just tackling corners on the touge

[Official_MikeyT]

A powerslide is often a byproduct of trying to go fast, whereas a drift is an alternative to going fast.

[gymusen]

I'm going to show this to my friends, who always said that “You can't drift a FWD Car”.

[JetL]

Your amazing, its so nice just to watch your driving with all these angles. But your descriptions make it even better. You should upload 50 times a day.

[mattiaetzi]

0:23 this takumi scared the shit out of me 😭💀

[reecemacdonald]

I absolutely love this channel. It's really welcoming and it's helped me a ton. And it's really satisfying to watch him drift down the touge, and it pretty explicit

[gigadonis]

If you purposefully induced understeer on the power in a FWD car, then the front end of the car will slide, thus, tecincally a powerslide. Very helpful when the car is at a too steep slip angle.

[totalhydration]

thank you for this video, I've been confusing power over and powersliding ever since I got into simracing

[skyloz]

Bru your videos are like my classes 😂 I learn so much stuff from your how to touge series.

[zeruiahwild]

Your FWD drifting is super smooth and impressive, as well as all of your techniques great channel love all the driving!

[manuelalejandrogomez]

Oh friend, you have helped me grow in the world of motorsports, thanks for your advice, they help me after all

And your videos are the best, they are quite dynamic and well explained, and the editing is almost perfect, thanks

[TheRyansLion]

Love the constant supplementary touge clips. You deserve more views!

[theforgottened]

I agree with most of what you said. Great video, great explanation! But, for me, a FWD car can't drift. It can slide (not powerslide) with handbrake or even weight transfer, before or after the apex but, for me, drifting is the act of maintaining that slide and a FWD car can't really maintain a slide because as soon as you step on the gas it "straightens" itself. Would love yo hear your opinion on this.

[mikeftw]

Best Sim Touge Racer This video actually cleared up a lot of doubts. Thanks!

[St_Rizla]

The background song is Artemis - Elysiaj Fields for anyone who is wondering

[rust]

I just call everything a "skid" because
A; it's funny
B; easyer

[ghenesyz]

and you playing with the gtx 1080 makes me remember when i had a pc simillar to you, i had a gtx 1050ti and the same processor. respect to that man.

[Blazrr]

It's amazing to me the amount of effort that comes into your vids and yet you don't have a large audience, have you ever thought about branching out to other forms of videos? like moments while driving and such? You're amazing dude and pretty much the reason i bought a wheel and AC

[dhruvsinghpal]

As per my observation powerslide occurs when we try to exit corners at high speed due to pushing gas pedal hard on exiting.
Drift occurs when we want to take entry at corners at high speed rather than relying on lift n coast we try delibrately slide the car at entry .

[zgyhfjh]

You explain so well and the explanations fit so well with the background video, great job and new sub of course