Russian pair Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, the Olympic and world silver medallists in 2014, edged closer to the European title on Friday when they dominated the short programme.
Stolbova and Klimov, who were also runners-up at last year's European championships, scored 71.38 points to finish ahead of compatriots, Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov.
"Today was a good performance for us, we did almost everything clean and we are glad about it. We hope that we can do it again in the free skating (on Sunday," said Klimov.
He admitted it was a challenge skating to their drum-based programme.
"It's not so easy to skate to the music because we're looking for the rhythm and there's just a drum and the choreography is different because of that of that.
"It suits our fast skating style though and we feel comfortable with happy with it."
French pair Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres, in their fourth year as a team, are third with 60.13 points.
Source: AFP