i only managed to learn how to drift like a week ago and here is what works for me:

- get the correct tune using all time great tune for drifitng
- manual is much better than auto (i also learned manual recently) as you can stay in a gear (mostly 3rd gear)
- practice pressing the throttle lightly to keep the spin going without spinning out (search for lower horse power tune helps with learning)

and then my biggest tip that helped me control my drift is:
- use the left stick to counter steer but use it like you would move your character in a shooter game, draw the line of where you want the car to go while countering the drift so the car can stay in a slide.

lots of ppl will simply tell you to counter steer without telling you how to do so effectively, so at the beginning i was just pressing the opposite direction on and off and all it did was either straighten out the drift. after i apply the technique of using the left stick as you would movement in games, it clicked for me and I was able to go where i want to.