According to this:
http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython/Wiki/View.aspx?title=IP20VsCPy25Perf&referringTitle=IronPython%20Performance
IronPython (Python fo
Python code doesn't get compiled to C, Python itself is written in C and interprets Python bytecode. CIL gets compiled to machine code, which is why you see better performance when using IronPython.