Yep, this game seems to have an issue with tire behavior at high slip angles.
I have a lot of experience in all other sims, am currently a pretty dedicated iRacer with an iRating of over 4700 on the road side (if that means anything to anybody... my youtube channel is /chrismodiano for some onboard laps I've capped), and I do track days with my car and my bike, and I've done a few drift events as well, so I know enough to have a decent idea of what a car feels like when it's sliding. The car has a decent behavior while everything is under control, and if the car slides out a tiny bit it's okay, but things just get out of hand from there, and there's really no saving the snap fast spin that happens once you get past a few degrees. I have to drive the car like I'm walking on egg shells, and for a road car, that's just not realistic. I'm guna buy GT5 of course, but this is why I just can't take it that seriously.
For the record, I'm 3rd in the overall rank right now at 11pm EST, so it's not like I'm complaining because I'm slow. Although I need to complain for a moment..... I could go much faster, but daaaaaaaaaaamn is that ghost car annoying!!! If you're a tenth off in the first corner, you're donzo for the lap, cuz that damn friggen ghost car is blocking all of your reference points! It totally ruins the concentration, and it's why I've hit a wall in speed after really not much time playing. I probably only did 10-15 laps with both cars... can you turn that thing off and I just haven't found it yet?