diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index ddf57f1494..ce3d657c98 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+Synapse 1.51.0rc2 (2022-01-24)
+==============================
+
+Bugfixes
+--------
+
+- Fix a bug introduced in Synapse 1.40.0 that caused Synapse to fail to process incoming federation traffic after handling a large amount of events in a v1 room. ([\#11806](https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/11806))
+
+
 Synapse 1.51.0rc1 (2022-01-21)
 ==============================
 
diff --git a/changelog.d/11806.bugfix b/changelog.d/11806.bugfix
deleted file mode 100644
index e4beaf103b..0000000000
--- a/changelog.d/11806.bugfix
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-Fix a bug introduced in Synapse 1.40.0 that caused Synapse to fail to process incoming federation traffic after handling a large amount of events in a v1 room.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index a013580e4f..a07bf4f2ef 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+matrix-synapse-py3 (1.51.0~rc2) stable; urgency=medium
+
+  * New synapse release 1.51.0~rc2.
+
+ -- Synapse Packaging team <packages@matrix.org>  Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:25:00 +0000
+
 matrix-synapse-py3 (1.51.0~rc1) stable; urgency=medium
 
   * New synapse release 1.51.0~rc1.
diff --git a/synapse/__init__.py b/synapse/__init__.py
index 3d0d165f48..ef859c9ded 100644
--- a/synapse/__init__.py
+++ b/synapse/__init__.py
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     pass
 
-__version__ = "1.51.0rc1"
+__version__ = "1.51.0rc2"
 
 if bool(os.environ.get("SYNAPSE_TEST_PATCH_LOG_CONTEXTS", False)):
     # We import here so that we don't have to install a bunch of deps when