The 5.18-rc5 kernel prepatch is out for
testing. “So if rc4 last week was tiny and smaller than usual, it seems to have
been partly timing, and rc5 is now a bit larger than usual.

But only a very tiny bit larger – certainly not outrageously so, and
not something that worries me.“

Source: LWN.net – Kernel prepatch 5.18-rc5