It was a near miss for Singapore at Volvo's Fuelwatch Challenge this year when she failed to emerge within the top three spots in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. The nation's representative, Eros Neo Jit Hong, did not pull through the third round of the challenge, which was held at Volvo Trucks' headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. The regional contest saw intense competition between 14 participants from 12 countries, including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand.

All participants have to complete three laps around the specially designed, 5.4km lap within a time frame of 14 minutes to clock the best fuel economy in the latest Volvo FH Series truck. 

At the end of the challenge, participants from Australia, China and Taiwan emerged top of their cohort and made it to the final stage of the Fuelwatch competition. More notably, Australian Scott Harvey consumed up to 14 percent less fuel than its competitors to be crowned as the APAC champion.

26-year old Singaporean Eros Neo is the youngest participant this year, and also the least experienced. But he managed to pull through the first two rounds of competition, before he was eliminated in the third round of the competition, before the global finals where he will face some of the most fuel efficient drivers in the world.

In the second off-road category, South Korean Myeongseong Kim made his nation proud by emerging top of the competition. He proved his driving skills in the new Volvo FMX tipper truck around the 3.8km gravel circuit that was located at the Volvo Demo Centre.

First held in Korea in the year 2007, the Volvo Fuelwatch Championship is an initiative to find the world's most fuel efficient truck driver, and more importantly, highlight the significance of the role played by the driver in the trucks' fuel efficiency. The event has since grown significantly, with this year's regional competition seeing no fewer than 5,800 participants from 12 countries.