Why is for _ in range(n) slower than for _ in [""]*n?

Testing alternatives to for _ in range(n) (to execute some action n times, even if the action does not depend on the value of n) I noticed that there is another formulation of this pattern that is faster, for _ in [""] * n.

For example:

timeit('for _ in range(10^1000): pass', number=1000000)

returns 16.4 seconds;

whereas,

timeit('for _ in [""]*(10^1000): pass', number=1000000)

takes 10.7 seconds.

Why is [""] * 10^1000 so much faster than range(10^1000) in Python 3?

All testing done using Python 3.3