Forza Horizon 5 drifting guide: How to drift, car choice, tuning and more

Mastering the art of drifting is not for the faint of heart but it’s a skill you will need to learn and perfect in Forza Horizon 5.

With a variety of amazing terrains from the sleek asphalt roads to the mountainous terrains, nailing those sharp turns will need some practice and fine-tuning before every event.

In this Forza Horizon 5 guide, we’ll be guiding you on the basics of drifting as well as how to tune your car for drifting and which cars are best adept to become Horizon Festival’s newest Drift King (or Queen).

Forza Horizon 5 Drifting Guide: How to drift

Drifting is quite a difficult skill to master but with the right car, performance upgrades and tuning settings, you can powerslide your way to victory. The large open-world map of Mexico is filled with plenty of incredible drifting spots to test out your tuning settings.

On the road or track, try to aim the car’s acceleration for 60 MPH before turning into a corner. When in the corner, hit the gas for a temporary speed boost which causes the car to slide.

When shifting gears, hit 'B' on the controller or hit 'X' to shift down gears. Using the D-pad or analog sticks, direct your car to maintain the car’s position and speed simultaneously.

If you experience any issues with the car’s performance or tuning settings, we have outlined a few key details to better improve your car’s handling and performance output.

Best drifting car

The Autoshow is filled with a huge variety of cars to meet the players' specific needs. The most suitable cars for drifting are rear-wheel driving (RWD) cars. For the best and most inexpensive RWD car to select from the start of the game is the 2000 Nissan Silvia Spec-R.

RWD cars are the most reliable for drifting as all the power is pushed out to the rear wheels, allowing your car to powerslide. The front wheels will be controlling your car, steering it into the drift zones with precision and preventing you from crashing into barriers.

The easiest way to find the best drifting car is to navigate your way to the Autoshow floor and select the “Sort” option to bring up a side-scrolling menu. Players can select from a variety of vehicle classes and tiers but look for the “Drift Cars” category to find the game's selection of drifting cars.

How to tune a car

After purchasing your preferred drifting car, you will need to equip some performance upgrades to increase the power of the rear wheels and fine-tune the handling for better control. Without getting too involved with the tuning settings, we will highlight a few key settings and performance upgrades you’ll want to equip before setting out for a drift zone.

The key upgrades you will need to focus on is the suspension and springs and dampers as these will keep your car well-centred and balanced without swaying left and right. If you wish to add more power to the car’s weight ratio, players can look to add Weight Reduction and Anti-Roll Bars for extra rigidity.

For better traction, especially when sliding into corners or when entering a drift zone, you will want to increase the tyres’ track width for more grip which will contribute to better handling.

Once the necessary performance upgrades are equipped, you should look to adjust the car’s tuning settings. In the case when one of the car's tyres doesn't grip onto the track, resulting in the other tyres spinning, turn the acceleration and deceleration up to 100% to lock the car’s differential.

Decrease the gear ratios so that you aren't sacrificing speed every time you’re changing gears. This setting can be toggled with for a while to find the right balance. Also, lower your car for more stability when drifting into corners.

Lastly, change the shifting setting from "Automatic" to "Manual" to give you more control over the car’s handling. The manual shifting setting will benefit players by keeping the drifting time longer than when it's set to Automatic.

With these handy tips and advice, you’ll be tearing up the asphalt or near the mountainous areas without sacrificing speed, control or time. Do keep in mind that you will need to spend time learning to drift so have fun and good luck.

• Read more: Forza Horizon 5 release time and date - when does early access start?

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Featured image courtesy of Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios.