EDIT: This was written when I was about halfway through the game. Now that I am in the Black races, some parts have been edited to reflect my new experience and viewer comments.

1. Left Foot Braking
The most basic way to get better at Trackmania is to use LCtrl for braking rather than the Down Arrow key. Pressing the down arrow with your right hand while driving with your right hand is uncomfortable and leads to screw-ups. Use the Left Control key while your right hand accelerates and steers so that you don't have to let off the gas to get into a drift.

2. Bring the Camera
You can change the camera to three different viewpoints using the Numpad 1, 2, and 3 keys, as well as cycle through more camera angles using NumDelete. I prefer to race using the bumper cam but others prefer the chase cameras for giving a view of where the back end of the car is in drifts. Sorry, everyone, no cockpit view.

3. Understand how Drifting Works
Trackmania is one of the few racing games designed from the ground up to be played on a keyboard. As such, the keyboard works incredibly well for controlling these cars, especially for precision driving. The steering is actually well optimized for digital input! The drifting follows suit.

Most of the game features narrow roads, not much wider than your car, with difficult corners. Start your drift, but don't hold the turn key. The car will drift at the angle you entered at and will gradually right itself. Use the turn keys during your drift to adjust the degree of the turn as you are cornering. In this way, Trackmania 2 Canyon requires great reflexes to be able to make these fine adjustments so quickly and accurately.

Also, shallow drifts are faster than sharp drifts. To make your drift as shallow as possible, get far to the outside and practice to find the ideal timing for when to start your drift.

4. Never Settle
You want gold medals. Never race against silver or bronze. Always race the gold medal time. If you can't beat the time, try again. If you still can't, go on to the next few races and try again later. Gold is very beatable and your skill will improve tremendously with a bit of dedication. Memorization is an essential skill for Trackmania. Knowing what's coming up beforehand means you can be prepared for it and get your driving down to muscle memory and reactions.

5. Watch the preview
What did I just say? Knowing what's coming means you can be prepared. Watch the preview before the race so you know where you are going when the race starts. You'll have a decent idea of where the hard parts are, too. You might also notice that the Gold Medal driver screws up on every race. He isn't perfect, so you can succeed where he failed.

6. Driving Me Up The Wall
The Stadium cars are light with a ton of grip and stay planted on walls for a long time while maintaining control. The Canyon cars can't. They are heavy and want to stay on the ground. Minimize your time on walls and maximize your time with gravity beneath you, not beside you.

7. Definition of Insanity
Ok, the repeating actions thing was a quote commonly attributed to Albert Einstein. The actual definition of insanity is just mental illness, but that's beside the point. Trackmania is absolutely consistent. Watch a push-forward track on youtube. You'll see that the cars hit the walls and react the same way every time; that's how those tracks are able to work.

If the way you are handling a section of track isn't working, try something different. Don't be afraid to experiment with new approaches. Use the Backspace key to restart at the nearest checkpoint rather than the Delete key so that you can try that challenging bit over and over again.

8. Control Your Jumps
If you are turning when you go off a jump, your car will continue turning in the air. Keep the car straight when going off jumps so that you can land straight. Letting off the gas before a jump or even in the air can change your distance dramatically and might be neccessary for some parts. Sometimes, you will want to land sideways so that you can be drifting when you hit the ground. This will help you cut corners closer to the apex and keep your speed up.