By lap 21, Russell had the gap to within half a second having been well over 2sec behind during the initial pit stop phase.
The fight looked to be over before it really began though as Russell notched up a three-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage on lap 23.
It didn’t stop him from making a move on-track though as one lap later, he made the pass down the main straight to take the lead from the Monegasque driver.
Albon’s strategy started to unravel early on in his second stint as he struggled to narrow the gap to around 10sec to the leaders.
He came up against a fast Latifi and crucially couldn’t find a way through for several laps. He eventually made a move stick after making it into the DRS window.
Not one to give up a fight, Leclerc muscled his way back past Russell as the leaders made it five to go, edging out the Williams wheel to wheel into Turn One.
Similarly to last week once again, Leclerc was fighting a back and forth battle for the lead, as Russell made it back past one lap later, with DRS assistance.
The Ferrari just about remained within a second, sometimes by thousands of a second but crucially nabbed DRS from the leader to remain in touch on the straights.
Albon’s pace tailed off with three laps to go, slowly closing in on third place man Gutierrez but not quickly enough to be involved in the lead fight.
With two laps to go, Russell finally managed to break the DRS to Leclerc, giving himself a 1.2sec cushion to work with.
Drama struck right at the death though as Leclerc earned himself a three-second time penalty at the penultimate corner of the penultimate lap. It handed initiative back to Russell.
The Williams man held on one final time to take his first virtual GP win and Leclerc just about held onto second ahead of Gutierrez in the Mercedes.