By David Ting

The prize is an all-expenses-paid junket to next year's Le Mans 24 Hours race in France. You'll schmooze with the Audi race team, snooze with their elite race drivers and booze like crazy after the race is over.

You'll fly there on Airbus - business class - and get to throw fresh caviar at the stale cattle class passengers suffering back there behind an iron curtain, where a beefy but smiley steward stands guard. In other words, it's a great prize.

The contest is the 10-week Audi Mileage Challenge, held in conjunction with the local launch of the A5 3.0 TDI, the automaker's first diesel model for Singapore.

The winner is the journalist who achieves the best mileage in the car over a three-day test period. As a bonus, Audi will donate $1 to the Singapore Environment Council for every kilometre covered. The champion will also enjoy bragging rights among his peers, some of whom are the best in the business. Then there is me, possibly the worst economy driver in the whole of Singapore.

I struggle to hit 10 "klicks" per litre on my supposedly economical Suzuki.

I love to drive hard and rev high from point to point, even though the travelling time saved, if any, doesn't justify the fuel 'spilled'. And in our previous issue's fuel efficiency test involving five different cars and six Torque writers, my mileage figures were the lowest, especially on the turbocharged Tiguan.

Guess I paid the price for horsing around with the Volkswagen's stable of 200 horses.

With the A5 3.0 TDI, the problem for me is not the horsepower but the torque.

The car's 500Nm is a lot of twisting force, and it's a huge temptation to accelerate everywhere like a bat out of hell - a bat with wings soaked in the black stuff and a tail powered by an Audi afterburner.

A lost cause for me, then? Not quite. Because I have a secret weapon: My hypermiling story in the March issue, which highlighted the top tried-and-tested tricks to stretch a car's mileage.

The toughest tip for me - I'm always in a hurry when on the road - is to "drive slowly and feather the throttle".

The A5 goes from standstill to 100km/h in just over 6 seconds, and its hearty mid-range makes overtaking as easy as ABCD (D for diesel). So, for me to drive the thing at a snail's pace, relative to the performance on tap and the surrounding traffic, is almost a torture.

Sonata taxis accelerated past like the Audi is standing still. Lumbering double-decker buses sauntered alongside, their curious commuters wondering why the grand tourer is touring like a grandmother. And a 50-year-old uncle on a $50 bicycle overtook my slow coach at a death-defying 50km/h.

That was the final straw, forcing me to step up the tempo aggressively and get ahead of the suicidal uncle. At exactly 51km/h.

Another trick I employed on my Mileage Challenge quest was to overpump the tyres. Not excessively, which would have been dangerous (I don't want my tyres exploding into nearby taxis, double-decker buses and uncles on bicycles), but just enough to help the A5 tread more lightly over the asphalt.

The recommended air pressure for the test car's 255/35 R19 tyres on a full load (meaning, four occupants and three pieces of luggage) is 44psi, so I filled them up to 48psi. I also took the opportunity to remove the 19-inch spare tyre, which is pretty heavy and "worth" at least a few hundred metres of mileage for every precious litre burned.

That fifth wheel wasn't the only item thrown out to save weight. The tome-like owner's manual and the thick, solid floor mats were also ejected. I would have parked the passenger seats at home, too, if they weren't bolted down so tightly.

So I did the next best thing: I rejected all and sundry who asked for a ride in the handsome Audi. Even the hottest girls wearing the shortest skirts were turned down, albeit with my profuse apologies and an offer to give them a lift in another fancy Audi on another day (but only if they wore the same short skirts, of course).

They wouldn't have enjoyed the ride anyway. We'd have taken forever to reach their destinations and be sweating all the way, because the air-con would have been switched off and the windows wound up - all to maximise the car's mileage.

There's no music either, because the stereo requires energy and every little joule counts here. I did consider bringing along an iPod, but it would have been extra weight. So I hummed my favourite pop songs as I cruised alone in the Audi, on a route precisely plotted to have the longest expressways, the lightest traffic and the greatest fuel efficiency.

Most of the driving was done late at night, not only to boost the car's economy (turbo engines run more efficiently on cooler air) but also for modesty's sake (I drove in the buff, because clothes and shoes are deadweight). Please don't tell the traffic police or the fashion police.

Halfway through my Mileage Challenge adventure, I checked the trip computer and it was looking good. Then Murphy's Law struck. My mum, who lives in the western part of the island, needed a quick ride to the Central Business District.

After which, my missus wanted to go shopping in town, smack in the middle of rush hour. And so many A4s, GTIs and petrol A5s kept challenging my electric blue coupe to an impromptu Grand Prix that I just couldn't decline all the invitations.

Sure that my result won't even get me an all-expenses-paid junket to the Audi showroom on Leng Kee Road, I returned the A5 TDI without checking its final fuel consumption figure.

However, a few hours later, an e-mail came in from the Audi PR girl congratulating me on having the best score so far! My so-called efficiency rating was 8.2228, the lowest on the board. Boy, was I surprised. My hypermiling must have worked!

As I happily surfed the Internet for information on Le Mans 2010, another e-mail arrived from the same PR girl, telling me that they made a mistake - the higher the score, the better.

My 8.2228 was kilometres per litre, not litres per 100 kilometres. My result was rock bottom on the scoreboard. I was about as fuel efficient in the A5 TDI as an oil sheikh in a twin-turbo V10 RS6.

I lost in this contest, and I lost big. But Audi won at the end of the day, and I got a good story out of it. So, no harm done.

David Ting is Deputy editor with Torque magazine by SPH Magazines.

Check out more stories at torque online, www.torque.com.sg