accelerate gently while the clutch is engaged in aim to have enough revs when the clutch will disengage . The same appear with real cars (rwd mainly), especially with NA engine of consequent displacement ... For the moment there is no proper automated gearbox doing the job for you for the curent cars.
I maybe wrong but I tend to remember that at a time in the past there was the throttle blip as an option ...
If you are using manual clutch, try to lift your left foot slower.
Anyway, in addition to what Flotch said, you can wait until your RPMs are lower to reduce the impact of downshifting. Sometimes shifting 2 or even 3 gears in a row is better than maxing the RPMs in each downshift. It varies on car to car, driving style and even track surface and race line.
good memory . The only concern I see is that AI do not do it (I thought they did it in the past) ... and it participates to the lack of efficiency they may have...
With shift lock you can initiate slide, but it's stupid to do so, bad for gearbox and clutch, and IRL drifters don't use shiftlock, it's not that effective and very inaccurate, 90% of the time it's the E brake