22/2/1944 - 16/1/2008
Record updated 31-Jan-08
Prince Jorge de Bagration was a Spanish racing car driver of Georgian descent and a claimant to the headship of the Royal House of Georgia.
Prince Jorge de Bagration de Moukhrani was born in Rome to the family of a Georgian émigré Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli, a descendant of the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi royal family of Georgia. His mother Countess Maria Antonietta Pasquini died giving birth to him.
He started his racing career in 1959, firstly with motorcycles and from 1963 in cars, racing in various series.
He made two attempts at Formula One, firstly in 1968, he had tried to enter the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix. The Escuderia Nacional CS team originally wanted to enter both Jorge and Soler-Roig in the same Lola T100s in which they were contesting that year's F2 campaign. Since the Lola was hardly competetive in F2 it was undoubtably unsuitable for F1. However the team's entry was either refused or withdrawn, and de Bagration was never on the entry list for the 1968 race.
His second attempt to enter a Grand Prix was again in Spain, at the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix. He had bought a Surtees TS16 to be painted in the colours of his sponsors, Escuderia Calvo Sotelo and El Corte Ingles, and he was included on the entry list. Unfortunately this entry list was mislaid as the outgoing president of the Spanish Motor Sport Federation cleared his office. When a new entry list was drawn up, in the light of some sponsorship problems that de Bagration was experiencing, he was omitted from it. Whether or not he would have been able to race with his reduced backing, he should still have been included on the list of entrants. Thus ended his hopes of competing at motor sport's highest level.
He turned later to rallying, and his best result was winning the Spanish Rally Championship in 1979 and 1981 with a Lancia Stratos HF. He retired from motor sport in 1982.
Prince Jorge was a claimant to the Headship of the Georgian royal family since the death of his father on October 30, 1977. As a claimant to the headship of the house he held the titles Duke of the Lasos, Prince of Kakhetia, Kartalia and Mukhrani. He was also Sovereign Head and Grand Master of the Order of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Protector Egregio of Divisa of the Old Cavalry and Devotion of San Miguel the Milagoso.[citation needed]
Prince Jorge made his first visit to his ancestral homeland to bury his father's ashes in 1995. He mostly lived in Marbella, Spain but paid several visits to Georgia, where his son David lives. He died in Tbilisi and was interred at the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta, Georgia.
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