Multiple Post Layouts in sequence?

Hello, I am simply throwing a line out there while i rack my brain around this coding. I have spent the past week reading books, reverse engineering themes and simply getting confused with a proberly simple concept.
What I am after is a simple sequence of posts displayed in order of latest within the main page. However… The top post is featured with a different layout to the others underneath. The idea is simply each new post takes the featured position and when new is added it automaticly slides down into a different layout witht the rest. I understand all the code positional concepts and can get it to pull a duplicate of the featured post but not realise that i only what it called once in the featured position.
Proberly could make it sound simpler but brains just burnt out sorry. Even a poke in correct direction would be grand. Thanks

To Clarify – Currently it does:
Featured:
Pulls post 1
Latest:
Repulls Post 1
Post 2
Post 3

What i need:
Featured:
Pulls post 1
Latest:
Pulls post 2
Post 3
Post 4

So inshort again keeping the sequence and automaticly cycling down when new are added. Thanks