posted this somewhere else so ill put it here as well, added a few things too..
heres my advice for normal, and fun snow driving.
first of all a good thing to keep in mind is that in lower grip situations, a car corners better with a little more slip angle(angle that the car is sliding/sideways) cars in the dry have an optimal slip angle. and it all depends on conditions, tires, the specific cars balance, and how it all comes together to give the car the grip it has. theres some physics behind it im not smart enough to explain very well, but tires dont just have grip, then go to 0 grip at once, its a gradual loss, and as the tires are just starting to barely slip is typically when you are taking advantage of the tires at their very best. its extremely dependent on the specific car, and especially in slippery conditions, its very dependent on the conditions.
the even harder part to explain is the physics behind the specific cars optimal angle. basically as a car goes around a corner its always accelerating in one or a combination of directions, first its braking then as it starts to turn it goes towards a sideways acceleration, at the apex/middle of the corner, when you're at the transition from brake to throttle is when the cars at its most sideways acceleration, then as you pick up throttle, it starts to transition to a forward acceleration. so as you're going around a corner, the car needs a certain level of slip angle to keep the cars acceleration pointed in the direction of a corner, in the snow, it typically needs to be a much larger angle.
sorry i did a shitty job of explaining it, but yeah, its important stuff to understand, and i wish they'd teach it in driving school.
first of all FWD is not necessarily better than RWD. heres the characteristics of both and how to drive them...
FWD
if you're driving around well under the limit, FWD is easier, its more stable, the front wheels pulling the car while under power naturally makes the car want to straighten out. but accelerating through a corner with FWD pretty much always creates understeer. so say you're driving through a corner in the snow, normal speed, no slipping going on, the more throttle you give it the less grip the front tires have, your asking the front wheels to do two things now, accelerate the car forward and turn, that turning grip will be reduced. only way to avoid that inherent understeer under acceleration is to have the car at an angle, so drifting, by the time you get to power, so you can use that understeer under power characteristic to straighten out the car as you apply throttle.
basically your average corner looks like this... enter the corner in a drift, your biggest slip angle will be before or around the apex, use the throttle to control how quickly/how much the car straightens out as you exit, if you go to big power right away, you'll just pick up a big understeer, go off or have to back off the throttle again. FWD can recover from huge slides, which can make it extremely fun in the snow, e brake or flick it into a corner and you can use the throttle to recover from pretty much anything.
Now if you're driving around slow and well under the limit it doesnt matter, thats just a basic idea of how to drive a FWD car in snow, which is usefull for anyone when they accidentally get into a slide or hit an ice patch, whatever.
RWD. IMO offers you a little more control but takes a lot more car control skill and being a lot more active with inputs. when driving around normally, under the limit, the rear will usually be a little more active if and when you do get a little slide. say you're driving around a corner at normal speed and give it a little too much throttle, the rear tires will spin and the rear will step out, (depending on lots of things, going to throttle could cause an understeer, especially if you have a lot of steering in the car)unlike a fwd car though, you still have good grip in the front tires, you're cornering ability isnt necessarily reduced, you're just doing it with the rear end out :) and you need to either control it with throttle/steering or lift to bring the rear back.
driving fast/drifting, is quite a bit different than a FWD car, entering a corner is still very similar, you dont want/need as much slip angle entering the corner because you dont have the inherent understeer of a fwd car when you pick up throttle. but you still want some, theres that optimal slip angle you want to achieve. when picking up throttle, you want to think of it more as a way to control/steer the car. you want to add power as the car can take it and as it needs it. you get to too much power too soon and spin the tires, and you end up with a big slide or a spin because you've taken away most of the rear tires grip. the tires will spin, the key is to modulate the throttle to keep them from spinning too much to the point of loosing all your rear grip. the goal exiting a corner is similar to a fwd car, you want to straighten the car out as you exit, not keep a huge slide to the exit. to do that you're gaining rear grip as you unload the sideways acceleration of the car and transitioning into forward acceleration.
AWD.
again you want to enter the corner with the right slip angle, usually not quite as much as a fwd car but more than a rwd car, you can really achieve RWD or FWD characteristics on exit with AWD. you have a lot more cornering ability on throttle, its much more obvious how the slip angle helps drive the car into the corner with an AWD car, because you can essentially have the car pointed into the corner and be on power, using the cars forward acceleration to propel the car in the direction you're turning. you can sometimes be earlier to power as well, and use that forward acceleration to corner, mid corner and exit/power application is where AWD has such an advantage. the goal at exit is still very similar to FWD and RWD, you are straightening the car out as you transition from a sideways/lateral acceleration to forward acceleration.
there are a couple ways ive heard to drive AWD in dirt/snow, one is to keep the car a little more sideways through the exit, because you have that forward acceleration you can use in the direction of the corner, thus keeping the exit speed higher.
and the other way which i heard from a friend who spent a couple days at a rally school in france, is that you essentially treat the entry very much the same, maybe a little more mid corner rotation, and keep steering into the corner through the exit (usually at exit you would be counter steering quite a bit in an effort to straighten the car out). the idea is that you have a good amount of rotation mid corner, and instead of countersteering on exit, you keep the wheels pointed into the corner, and use a more aggressive throttle input to create understeer, which striaightens the car out as you exit. makes sense to me, you still have that forward drive accelerating the car into the corner. because of the rotation on entry, but instead of your front wheels pointing to the outside of the corner in an effort to straighten the car out, you're using the understeer you created to do that, while keeping the front wheels pointed into the corner. seems ideal to me.
i know that was long, i added a bit, but you should read it especially if you like snow drifing. so many people i know, regardless of FWD AWD or RWD just think, e brake + mash the throttle = drift. and end up running into poles.
sparknotes:
go find a parking lot and fuck around every time it snows
